Ancient written sources are unique historical monuments. Even after thousands of years, there are scrolls, books and texts in which scientists discover some hidden and unexpected elements. In our review, there are "ten" mysterious and unique written sources, which we managed to read quite recently.
1. Hidden text in the oldest Bible in England
Hidden text in the oldest Bible in England
Today, the Bible can be found anywhere: in any bookstore, in any hotel room, etc. But this was not always the case. Translating the Bible into English was once a deadly endeavor, and translators were often burned at the stake. During the so-called English Reformation, Henry VIII announced his break with the Roman Catholic Church and began to rewrite age-old religious beliefs to suit his own needs.
In 1535, the official version of the Bible was published in England. To date, only seven copies of the five-century book have survived, and it was only recently that scholars discovered that one of them contained a series of annotations hidden in the margins, hidden under pieces of paper that were glued to the original pages of the Bible. Since there was no way to remove the paper without destroying the Bible, historians turned to the Royal School of Dentistry in London to take X-rays with an exposure of the hidden text.
These photographs were then passed through a computer program, which removed all of the typed text, leaving only the handwritten words. Some of the handwritten notes turned out to be instructions as to which portions of the holy book should be read on any given day throughout the year.
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2. Original declaration by Thomas Jefferson
Original Declaration by Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson is an incredibly controversial figure. Everyone is used to considering him one of the founding fathers of America, because everyone knows that Jefferson wrote the US Declaration of Independence. Recently, however, experts from the Library of Congress Research and Testing Department performed a hyperspectral scan of an image of a draft declaration.
They found one very curious change: Jefferson's draft said “fellow citizens,” and in the published Declaration it was replaced by “fellow citizens.” On the one hand, this is a small change, but it was huge in terms of the mentality of people who were on the verge of declaring the independence of the American colonies from British rule.
3. Rituals of the Great Enlightened Society of Oculists
Rituals of the Great Enlightened Society of Oculists
Secret societies helped shape the modern world and over the centuries many of these societies have relied on coded documents to keep their secrets safe. It took modern historians 250 years to unravel the code of the Great Enlightened Society of Ophthalmology, which was created in the middle of the 18th century in the German city of Wolfenbüttel.
The symbolism of society revolved around the eye - the symbol of human knowledge. Members of the society were among the first to study ophthalmology and even performed eye surgeries. The decrypted document contains references to the fact that the order was persecuted by the state and the church. The document also contains descriptions of the secret rites and rituals of the secret society. The highest initiates of the Great Enlightened Society of Oculists claimed that they were the real founders of the Freemasons.
4. Lost treatises of Archimedes
Lost treatises of Archimedes
Ancient manuscripts with copies of the works of the ancient Greek mathematician, physicist and engineer Archimedes were brought to Constantinople in the 9th century. At the time, it was a wealthy and prosperous city that was also well defended. This made Constantinople not only a center of learning, but also a repository of precious documents and knowledge. The end came in 1204 when Pope Innocent III gave his approval for the Fourth Crusade.
Constantinople fell, and the manuscripts were transported to Jerusalem, where the parchment on which they were written was partially cleared of ink and a prayer book was written on it. In 1876, the prayer book was sold to Oxford University in a badly damaged condition. The book soon disappeared and is believed to have been stolen from someone's private collection until it resurfaced at auction in 1998. The new (anonymous) owner gave the book for restoration, where it was discovered that barely noticeable lines in ancient Greek ran across the liturgical text. So the lost treatises of the famous Archimedes were rediscovered.
5. Plato's musical code
Plato's musical code
Plato's treatise "State" - reflections on the utopian state, which is built on the idea of justice and is governed by philosophers. Although this treatise is almost 2,400 years old, it is only recently that people have been able to read the music that Plato encoded in the text. According to Dr. Jay Kennedy of the University of Manchester, Plato shared the Pythagorean idea of the "music of the spheres" - the inaudible musical harmony of the universe.
He also built his works according to the laws of musical harmony (after all, Plato always argued that music, nature, science and religion go hand in hand). At the end of every twelfth text, Kennedy found word groups related to Plato's 12-note musical scale. Moreover, in place of each such "note" there were words associated with the ideas of harmony or dissonance.
6. Codex Sinai and Jesus
Codex Sinai and Jesus
The Codex Sinai is the oldest Bible in the world, dating back to about 350 AD. This Greek text of over 1,460 pages (it contains part of the Old Testament and the New Testament) is currently held in the British Library, St. Catherine's Monastery in Egypt, the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg and the Leipzig University Library.
The Greek scholar Nicholas Sarris, who was working on the digitization of the Code, in 2009 suddenly discovered 1 more part of this Bible (namely, verse 10 from the first chapter of the book of Joshua). He found it in the binding of an old volume in the library of the Egyptian monastery of St. Catherine (the binding of this book was reinforced with a sheet of the Sinai Codex).
7. Minoan tablets
Minoan tablets
The palace at Knossos was excavated at the turn of the 20th century, and one of the most mysterious artifacts found in it are numerous clay tablets with inscriptions in an unknown language, not one is recognized. By 1909, enough tablets had accumulated to compose a whole book from them, after which Sir Arthur Evans was able to divide writing into two different languages: Cretan Linear A and Linear B.
Although the first language has not yet been translated, scientists were able to decipher the second language in 1952. It turned out that this is just a version of the Greek language, in contrast to the letter A. This letter arose after the conquest of Crete and its possessions by Greek settlers and was used for clerical records such as lists of livestock, lists of famous spices, lists of men, women, boys and girls, along with their assigned duties, etc.
8. The unreadable diary of David Livingston
The unreadable diary of David Livingston
In 1871, two years before his death, Scottish African explorer David Livingstone found himself in a desperate situation on the Black Continent. He became very ill and was left without money. Despite the gravity of the situation, he continued to write his notes on Africa. He made the ink himself from the juice of berries and seeds of local plants, so the handwritten text soon became completely unreadable.
One of these letters, addressed to his friend Horace Waller, was deciphered as much as 140 years later. As it turned out, Livingston wrote his impressions of the horrors that the slave traders did in Africa.
9. Black Book of Carmarthen
Black Book from Carmarthen
The Black Book of Carmarthen (circa 1250) is one of the earliest books written entirely in Welsh. It was discovered among the possessions of St. David's Cathedral, and is now in the National Library of Wales. The book contains the earliest Welsh references to King Arthur and Merlin, along with many poems and legends. Recently, the book was illuminated with ultraviolet light and previously unknown secrets were revealed in it. It turns out that after the Black Book was completed by its main author, other people would finish it. Also, additions and comments were made in the fields. In the 16th century, the owner of the manuscript (probably a man named Jasper Griffith) erased everything that was added after the death of the original author. This became clear after 5 centuries.
10. Scrolls of Herculaneum
Scrolls of Herculaneum
After the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, Pompeii and the neighboring city of Herculaneum were buried under a layer of ash. The city was excavated in 1752, and 1800 scrolls were found among the artifacts, which were kept in the large library of the resort town. Unfortunately, many scrolls were destroyed out of ignorance or while trying to unwrap the charred papyrus. Even when Father Antonio Piaggio created a machine for unwrapping scrolls, the inside was just as black and burnt.
The contents of the scrolls remained a mystery until scientists at Brigham Young University looked at unfolded sheets of papyrus under infrared light and realized that they could read part of the text. Today, thanks to the development of spectral 3D imaging, scrolls do not even need to be unwrapped. Most of them turned out to be philosophical works in Greek.
