OhOne summer day in Tipperary, peat was being dug out of the swamp, and a button poked out of the freshly cut dirt. This discovery opened a five-year conservation journey to retrieve and preserve something farther: a 1200-year-old chant book with its original cover.
The swamps throughout Europe have thrown out various relics of ancient history, from naturally preserved corpses to containers of butter more than a thousand years old, but in 2006 a complete early medieval manuscript was found, buried in damp It’s too long in the time capsule, the National Museum says it’s unprecedented Ireland.
The book was opened as soon as it was found, and it contains Latin words In the valley of tears (In the valley of tears), this recognizes it as a volume of poems. A particularly unexpected feature is the vegetable-tanned leather cover with papyrus reed lining, which suggests that the monks may have trade links with Egypt.
“It still shocks me,” said John Gillis, the chief manuscript conservationist at Trinity College Dublin, where the Book of Kells, Book of Armagh and 450 other medieval Latin manuscripts are located. “This is the most challenging and interesting project I have undertaken so far-putting it in context, I am surrounded by these iconic manuscripts.”
After being exhibited at the National Museum of Dublin for 10 years, Faddan More Psalter is one of Ireland’s top ten treasures and is now the subject of a 340-page book by the institution, which records every stage of the “terrifying” preservation process for future scholars.
“The fact that such a fragile organic object survived in a humid environment for a thousand years, the fact that it was noticed…and a complete Futaba book survived and allowed Gillis to determine the coding details of the chant The facts are very unfavorable,” said Maeve Sikora, an Irish antiquities manager at the National Museum, who supported Gillis’ work.
The process of fixing the book outside the swamp, drying it, and then unpacking and unfolding the pages when possible is very difficult. Archaeologists placed the “collection” of squashed pages, leather and turf in the museum walk-in cold storage at 4C. But there is no manual in the world that can guide Gillis how to accomplish this task.
“The first three months I took the quality out of the refrigerator and brought it to my laboratory, just staring at it, trying to figure out its meaning before I started any kind of intervention. Because once you disrupt it, you You are actually losing the evidence,” Gillis said.
“Although the swamp caused it to be in a very bad condition, it also has the responsibility to lock it in its original state.”
In order to alleviate further trauma, preliminary examinations are limited. CT scans and X-rays looking for 3D structures are excluded because of concerns that they will accelerate degradation.
After experimenting with complex versions of freeze drying, vacuum sealing, and blotting paper drying, Gillies decided to use a vacuum chamber installed in the museum laboratory to dehydrate for four years to minimize shrinkage and decay.
Before starting the difficult task of dismantling, it will take two years for all folio fragments to be in a dry and stable state. This process is documented in the publication of “More Poems of Fadan” and “Treasures of the Middle Ages” later this month. The Discovery and Protection of “in the book.
“It’s absolutely terrible,” Gillis said of the responsibility he felt. “I heard from someone at the British Museum that there was a photo of Mass hanging on the wall of the staff area there, and it said’If you think the next day is not good…’ material, which means Lost evidence, and the point is to try to get as much information as possible.”
Many of the gaps between the letters of the iron gall have melted in the swamp, leaving behind a soup of thousands of independent letters. It takes months after the drying process to piece them together on the correct page in order.
“When you slowly pick up a shard, suddenly there will be rewards under this little decoration, especially the yellow paint they used. It will give back to you,” Gillis said. “You would say:’Wow, I am the first person to see this in 1200.’ So this privilege makes all sleepless nights and racking their brains worth it.
“This is the purest protection I have ever done. There is no repair, and I have not attached anything new. All I have done is captured and stabilized.”
