Posted on 03/02/2021 4:04:54 PM PST by BenLurkin
More than 600 years ago, someone intricately folded, sealed and posted a letter that was never delivered. Now, scientists have digitally "unfolded" this and other similarly locked letters found in a 17th-century trunk in The Hague, using X-rays.
For centuries prior to the invention of sealed envelopes, sensitive correspondence was protected from prying eyes through complex folding techniques called "letterlocking," which transformed a letter into its own secure envelope. However, locked letters that survive to the present are fragile and can be opened physically only by slicing them to pieces.
The new X-ray method offers researchers a non-invasive alternative, maintaining a letterpacket's original folded shape. For the first time, scientists applied this method to "locked" letters from the Renaissance period, kept in a trunk that had been in the collection of the Dutch postal museum in The Hague, The Netherlands, since 1926.
Locked letters used different mechanisms to stay securely closed, including folds and rolls; slits and holes; tucks and adhesives; and a variety of cleverly constructed locks, according to a study published online March 2 in the journal Nature Communications.
To penetrate the layers of folded paper, the study authors used an X‐ray microtomography scanner engineered in the dental research labs at Queen Mary University of London (QMU). Researchers designed the scanner to be exceptionally sensitive so that it could map the mineral content of teeth, "which is invaluable in dental research," study co-author Graham Davis, a QMU professor of 3D X-ray imaging, said in a statement.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
And I just looked up his bio. He and I share a birthday
Cool.
“Eateh and repast at Joe’s’’.
NEWMAN!!
They have “Dental Research” in London?
Who Knew?
Dear Michaelangelo,
About that statue ... umm, how to put this, ... umm, drop by my office when you have a chance.
— Your buddy, the Pope
That’s some fancy computer work.
Mick, follow-up, did they not wear like, a tunic, back then? Or a longer shirt? Work with me here.
“Please come home soon. Your father, uncle, brother, sister, grandfather and grandmother have all died from the plague.”
Ouch.
no one guessed, “your wagon warranty is about to expire”.
LOL!
At that point Le Pers decided to cease any further communication...
Ping
Send more Elvis.
I think canvases were often re-used by artists similarly; and they’ve found paintings under paintings...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palimpsest
Know what I thought when I read the article?
Nothing’s changed about postal carriers in nearly a millenia.
According to the article, they have figured out what one letter was - a request for documentation, probably over a legal concern.
(Have patience. This isn’t exactly as easy as baking a cake.)
Penned on “July 31, 1697,”
7 311 6 97 = 17.
;-)
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