1 of 3 Eadburg’s book drawings, digitally highlighted in blue — Photo: Archiox/Bodleian Library/Via BBC Eadburg’s book drawings, digitally highlighted in blue — Photo: Archiox/Bodleian Library/Via BBC
About 1,300 years ago, a woman took a precious book and scribbled letters and patterns in the edges.
She didn’t use ink she just scratched the paper and the doodles were barely visible to the naked eye. Nobody knew they were there until last year.
The book is an 8thcentury copy of the Acts of the Apostles, part of the New Testament. It is now in the Bodleian Library at the British University of Oxford.
Researchers have known for some time that the religious text likely belonged to a woman, but they weren’t sure who it was.
Until, in 2022, researcher Jessica Hodgkinson of the University of Leicester, also in the UK, decided to take a closer look and, to her surprise, discovered a hidden squiggle on page 18, just below the Latin text.
The dashes have been digitally highlighted and you can now clearly see the letters: “EaDBURG BIREð CǷ…N”.
unclear meaning
The last word is incomplete. And further analysis revealed that the book was deliberately scratched four more pages with a blunt object.
2 of 3 The hidden scribble in the book that gave rise to the investigation — Photo: Archiox/Bodleian Library The hidden scribble in the book that gave rise to the investigation — Photo: Archiox/Bodleian Library
What could be the point?
Hodgkinson interpreted the first symbol as a cross, followed by “Eadburg” almost certainly the name of the book’s owner.
Not much is known about her, but Hodgkinson and his team suspect that Eadburg was a nun the abbess of a religious community from MinsterinThanet a village in Kent, England.
The following texts are a bit more cryptic. Perhaps they could mean “is in the cwærtern” “prison” in Old English.
The Latin passage above the scrawls describes the captivity of the apostles, and Eadburg may have drawn a parallel to his own situation.
The strangest thing is that Hodgkinson and his colleagues found drawings of people on other sites.
On one of the banks a square figure with outstretched arms perhaps a nun? In another, a person reaches out to the face of a sad companion. Didn’t she want to hear what the other person was saying?
However, the meaning of the drawings is a mystery. And the scribblings in the margins of Eadburg’s book aren’t the only writing and drawings that have been discovered at Oxford in recent months.
Hodgkinson was able to locate the Eadburg prints in the Bodleian Library thanks to new imaging technology that can map the physical texture and contours of pages in books and manuscripts, or the surface of other historical objects such as printing plates.
This detailed mapping reveals markers that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye or even ordinary cameras.
“The surface carries an immense amount of information,” explains Adam Lowe, founder of the Factum Foundation in Madrid, Spain the nonprofit organization that developed the technology for the Oxford Library as part of the Archiox project to analyze and record cultural heritage at Oxford).
Lowe says that “the more you can visualize, the more truly amazing discoveries will emerge.”
Archiox project researchers use two devices to create digital representations of pages and objects. One of them is called “Selene”. It has four cameras that can detect differences in surface relief of up to 25 microns (0.025mm).
3 of 3 Hunting scene in a 1,200 year old manuscript — Photo: Archiox/Bodleian Library/Via BBC Hunting scene in a 1,200 year old manuscript — Photo: Archiox/Bodleian Library/Via BBC
The other is Lucida, which emits lasers and has two tiny cameras to create 3D scans.
“Everything can be measured. It’s not just an imaging tool, it’s also a measuring instrument. And that makes it all the more fascinating,” says John Barrett, photographer at the Bodleian Library and technical lead on the Archiox project.
In the basement of the Bodleian Library, technology is used to create digital representations of various items in its collection. And Eadburg’s book wasn’t the only centuriesold document to reveal hidden flourishes.
In a 9thcentury manuscript, researchers from the Archiox Project mapped a hunting scene scratched into the surface.
And among the animals, the word “RODA” was found, which is probably related to the owner of the book. Barrett claims that “this has never been observed.”
Why would people scratch their names into books and add barely visible drawings like this? Well, as for the names, it could have been to show who owned the work without scribbling valuable religious texts.
“These manuscripts were considered sacred. And even if you wanted to leave your mark on them, you didn’t want to be too obvious,” explains Barrett.
As for the numbers, “I don’t think they were necessarily scrawled on purpose,” he says. “Many times these notes, and certainly others I have taken recently, were undoubtedly related to the text itself.”
copper plates
Some of the first objects from the Bodleian Library collection to be examined for the Archiox project were the 200 to 300 year old copper printing plates that make up the socalled Rawlinson collection. They were selected by Alexandra Franklin, Coordinator of the Center for Book Studies, and Chiara Betti, PhD student at the University of London.
An example of an engraving previously hidden and revealed by Archiox technology is that of a plaque containing the portrait of an influential French cardinal on the obverse. But when the researchers looked at the back of the illustration, there appeared to be a barelythere musical score.
Technology has made it possible to observe banknotes with complete clarity. “Probably, [a melodia] was inspired by Psalm 9, for the words [em inglês] seem to fit together,” says Barrett.
In Portuguese, Psalm 9 of the Bible begins with these words: “I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders. I will rejoice in you and rejoice in you; upon your name, O Most High, I will sing praises.”
But why would anyone do that?
“The material [cobre] it was very valuable,” explains Barrett. “It could have been reused, or it could just have been an opportunity for the performer or recorders to practice.”
But he points out that there is no known imprint of this music made from the plaque. So his discovery added a new element to the historical record.
“It was not recorded in the record’s cataloging reference. These are entirely new discoveries being made,” says Barrett.
“I would say that probably a third of the panels analyzed for Archiox also had something on the back. Often the designs are very beautiful, strange or mysterious,” says the researcher.
Maps and Artists
The Archiox project’s technology also revealed new insights into the techniques used to create the objects. This was the case for a historically important map.
“It’s the oldest recognizable map of the British Isles, dating back to the 14th century,” says Barrett.
A scan of the surface by the Archiox project team revealed that “it’s absolutely riddled with pinholes, over 2,000 of them…Places like cathedrals, rivers and more have been marked or marked,” according to Barrett.
This indicates that the map was copied as map makers would have used pins to aid in the reproduction. They would have placed the original map over the replica and used sharp objects to mark important spots on the material under the map.
“You can imagine that this original map would probably have been used to create other maps, but actually it’s the other way around,” he says.
Surface mapping revealed that “the pinholes do not completely pierce the map. So we can deduce that this map was actually copied from a matrix: an earlier map.”
And the Archiox project’s technology is also helping to reveal new clues to the artistic talent that led to the creation of the works.
When researchers from the Archiox Project analyzed the surface of a Japanese woodblock print, they found that the artist had added textures that he knew were invisible to the human eye.
If we look at the character’s face and the bow around the head, both printed in the same color, the technology allows us to see the difference in texture.
“You wonder why on earth the printer bothered to do this truly amazing carving and engraving work if you can’t see it,” says Barrett.
Is it supposed to change the way light is reflected on the finished print? Possibly. But the researcher has a different opinion.
“I think the answer is that it was an act of love. These things were made as perfect as possible. It brings a new perspective on the techniques involved in their production that one really didn’t have before, only with conventional technology. “
Lowe suggests that with this new approach, there could be thousands of new discoveries waiting to be found, tucked away in libraries and art galleries.
“People are beginning to realize that ‘landmark information’ changes how we know,” he explains. “There must be objects in libraries around the world that can benefit from this technology … it’s about treating physical objects as evidence.”
“There are many things that we know, but there are also many more things that can be discovered. And I think that’s an incredibly stimulating and inspiring thought,” he concludes.
Richard Fisher is senior journalist at BBC Future.
Reporter Hannah Fisher recently presented research from the Archiox project on the BBC World Service radio program Digital Planet. Listen to the episode (in English coverage starts at 11:20am) on the BBC Sounds website.
Read the original version of this report on the BBC Future website.