10 mysterious documents that could not be read until recently

The ancient written sources - the unique historical monuments. Even after thousands of years are scrolls, books and texts, in which scientists discover some hidden and unexpected elements. In our review of "ten" mysterious and unique written sources, which could be read recently.

10 mysterious documents that could not be read until recently

Hidden text in the oldest Bible in England

10 mysterious documents that could not be read until recently

Today the Bible can be found anywhere: in any bookstore in any hotel room, etc. But this is not always so... Translation of the Bible into English was once a mortally dangerous and interpreters are often burned at the stake. During the so-called English Reformation, Henry VIII declared by the break with the Roman Catholic Church and began to rewrite the ancient religious beliefs to suit your needs.

In 1535 the official version of the Bible was published in England. To date, only seven survived five centuries of copies of the book and only recently, scientists have discovered that one of them has a number of annotations, hidden in the fields. The text was hidden under a piece 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 appealed to the London Royal School of Dentistry, to make X-ray images with the exposure of hidden text.

These photos were then run through a computer program that removed all typed text, leaving only the hand-written word. Some of the handwritten notes was instructions on what fragments of the sacred books should be read in a given day throughout the year.

The original of the Thomas Jefferson

10 mysterious documents that could not be read until recently

Thomas Jefferson - incredibly controversial figure. It all used to be considered one of the founding fathers of America, because everybody knows that Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Recently, however, experts of research and testing at the Library of Congress made hyperspectral imaging scan of the draft declaration.

They have found a very interesting change: in the draft was written by Jefferson "fellow-citizens", and published the Declaration that was changed to "fellow citizens." On the one hand, this is a small change, but it was huge for against the mentality of the people who were on the verge of independence of the American colonies from British rule.

The rituals of the Great Enlightened Society ophthalmologists

10 mysterious documents that could not be read until recently

Secret societies have helped to shape the modern world and through the centuries, many of these companies rely on coded documents to keep their secrets safe. Modern historians took 250 years to unravel the code of Great Enlightened Society ophthalmologists, which was created in the mid-18th century in the German town of Wolfenbüttel.

The symbolism of society revolved around the eye - a symbol of human knowledge. Members of the public were among the first to study ophthalmology, and even perform surgery on the eyes. The decrypted document includes 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 a secret society. Higher devoted to the Great Enlightened society eye doctors have argued that they are the real founders of the Masons.

Lost treatises of Archimedes

10 mysterious documents that could not be read until recently

The ancient manuscript copies of the works of the ancient Greek mathematician, physicist and engineer Archimedes was taken to Constantinople in the 9th century. At that time, it was a rich and prosperous city, which is also well protected. This made Constantinople is 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 its approval to the Fourth Crusade.

Constantinople fell, and a manuscript transported to Jerusalem parchment on which they were written, partially purified from the ink and written thereon prayer. In 1876, the prayer book was sold to Oxford University in a very damaged condition. Book soon disappeared and is believed to have been stolen and was in someone's private collection until a new surfaced at an auction in 1998. New (anonymous), the owner gave the book for restoration, where he discovered that across the liturgical texts were barely noticeable lines in Greek. So it was rediscovered lost treatises of Archimedes famous.

Plato Music Code

10 mysterious documents that could not be read until recently

The treatise "The State" Plato - reflections of a utopian state, which is built on the idea of ​​justice, and is controlled by the philosophers. Although this treatise turned almost 2,400 years, only recently people have been able to read music, which Plato encoded in the text. According to Dr Jay Kennedy of the University of Manchester, Plato shared the Pythagorean notion of "music of the spheres" - inaudible musical harmony of the universe. His works, he also built according to the laws of musical harmony (since Plato always maintained that music, nature, science and religion go hand on hand). At the end of each twelfth of the text Kennedy found the group of words related to the musical scale of 12 notes of Plato. Moreover, in place of each such "notes" were words associated with the ideas of harmony or dissonance.

The Codex Sinaiticus and Jesus

10 mysterious documents that could not be read until recently

The Codex Sinaiticus is the oldest Bible in the world, which dates back to around the year 350 BC. e. This Greek text of more than 1460 pages (it contains part of the Old Testament and New Testament) is now kept in the British Library, the Monastery of St. Catherine in Egypt, the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg and Leipzig University Library.

Nicholas Sarris Greek scholar, who worked on the digitization of the Code, in 2009, suddenly found another 1 part of the Bible (ie, verse 10 of the first chapter of the Book of Joshua). He found it in the cover of the old volumes in the library of an Egyptian monastery of St. Catherine (sheet of the Codex Sinaiticus was reinforced cover of this book).

The Minoan tablets

10 mysterious documents that could not be read until recently

The Palace of Knossos was excavated at the turn of the 20th century, and one of the most mysterious artifacts found in it, has led to numerous clay tablets with inscriptions in an unknown language., No one recognized. By 1909, it had accumulated a sufficient number of tablets to take out of them a book, after which Sir Arthur Evans was able to divide the script into two different languages: Cretan Linear A and Linear A letter B. Although the first language has not yet been transferred, researchers in 1952 were able to decipher the second language. It turned out that this is just a version of the Greek language, in contrast to the letter A. This letter came after the conquest of Crete and his possessions by Greek settlers and was used for office records such as lists of cattle, lists of known spices, lists of men, women, boys and girls , along with the responsibilities entrusted to them, and so on. d.

Unreadable diary of David Livingstone

10 mysterious documents that could not be read until recently

In 1871, two years before his death, a Scottish explorer of Africa David Livingstone was in a desperate situation on the continent. He became very ill and was left without any money. Despite the gravity of the situation, he still continued to write his notes about Africa. Ink, he made himself from the juice of the berries and seeds of native plants, so the handwriting soon became completely unreadable.

One of these letters, addressed to his friend Horace Waller, was deciphered by as much as 140 years. As it turned out, Livingstone wrote his impressions of the horrors that have worked slavers in Africa.

The Black Book of Carmarthen

10 mysterious documents that could not be read until recently

The Black Book of Carmarthen (dating from about 1250 a year) is one of the earliest books written entirely in Welsh. It was found among the possessions of St. David's Cathedral, and is now in the National Library of Wales. The book contains the earliest reference to the Welsh King Arthur and Merlin, along with a number of poems and legends. Recently, a book to enlighten the ultraviolet and it opened up previously unknown secrets. It turns out that after it was over The Black Book of the principal author, it appends other people. Also in the field to make additions and comments. In the 16th century the owner of the manuscript (probably a man named Jasper Griffith) erased all that was added after the death of the original author. This became clear after 5 centuries.

Herculaneum Scrolls

After the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD Pompeii and the nearby town of Herculaneum was buried under a layer of ash. The city was excavated in 1752 and 1800 scrolls were found among the artifacts that were stored in a large library of the spa town. Unfortunately, a plurality of rolls of ignorance been destroyed or when attempting to expand charred papyrus. Even when Father Antonio Piaggio invented a machine for unrolling the scrolls, inside they were as black and burned.

The contents of the scrolls was a mystery as long as researchers from Brigham Young University does not look at the detailed papyrus sheets under infrared light and realized that they could read the text. Today, thanks to the development of spectral 3D images, the scrolls do not even need to deploy. Most of them were philosophical works in Greek.