Burnt Magna Carta Read for First Time in 283 Years

From Fox News.

multispectral-magna-cartaMore than 280 years after it was damaged in a fire, one of the original copies of the Magna Carta is legible again.

Written in 1215, the Magna Carta required the king of England King John to cede absolute power. Today, the Magna Carta is seen as a first step toward constitutional law rather than the hereditary power of royalty. There were four copies of the document created at the time. One, held by the British Library, was badly damaged in a fire in 1731.

Now, researchers have used a technique called multispectral imaging to decipher the text of the “Burnt Magna Carta” without touching or further damaging the delicate parchment. This imaging allowed conservation scientists to take pictures of the document that virtually erase the damage and show details of the parchment and text.

“It was in such a terrible state, we couldn’t read any of it, really,” said Christina Duffy, a British Library imaging scientist. “It was actually quite a surprise that so much text was recovered.”

Read it all.