Submitted by hugglenugget t3_z70adb in news
khrak t1_iy4ltaq wrote
>The name of a highly educated English woman, secretly scratched on to the pages of a rare medieval manuscript in the eighth century, but impossible to read – until now.
The whole article they try make it sound like someone was secretly hiding these messages in various documents.
>capable of revealing “almost invisible” markings so shallow they measure about a fifth of the width of a human hair,
But it's pretty obvious that someone was doodling on some other material that was sitting on top of them.
I guess being able to recover 1,300 year old writing via the depressions left on another document just wasn't cool enough.
jigokubi t1_iy55zsz wrote
Apparently the author never once read a mystery novel.
Maybe Eadburg was a celebrity, using the manuscript as a support while signing autographs.
hugglenugget OP t1_iy6kk8m wrote
I imagine there may be differences due to the effects of a stylus's friction when applied directly to the page, compared to the frictionless depression caused by printing through from one page to another. Perhaps the fibres are dragged in a particular way.
Also, did the writing implements of the time require pressure? With a quill, a brush or an ink pen with a nib you wouldn't be able to use that much pressure. So perhaps that's another way they could figure out that this isn't print-through. But it's not explained in the article, as you say.
SaltpeterSal t1_iy53m2l wrote
It's possible, although at this point the closest thing they have to paper is animal hide. Yes, even the pages are leather-bound. Who knows, maybe there's a matching tapestry with her name slashed into it.
Vulturedoors t1_iy7ntib wrote
WTF are you talking about. This wasn't 10,000 BC.
Delicious-Day-3614 t1_iy5504r wrote
>But it's pretty obvious that someone was doodling on some other material that was sitting on top of them.
It's pretty blatantly obvious this is not what happened.
DecentChanceOfLousy t1_iy5cdgw wrote
Please, explain how it's blatantly obvious. What led you to this conclusion, other than the fact that the author said it was theirs?
Delicious-Day-3614 t1_iy5e5vz wrote
No. If we want to play that game then the burden of evidence lies with the original claim, which I simply rebutted.
DecentChanceOfLousy t1_iy5jjjk wrote
You said it was blatantly obvious, but I simply don't see how it can be obvious at all, much less blatantly so.
Thin depressions in a writing surface, with no pigment, show up constantly because the pressure of something else being written overtop of it travels through to the writing surface below.
I find it much easier to believe that that is what happened here, rather than a scribe writing and doodling with imperceptibly shallow scratches that they can't see even as they're writing. Perhaps I'm missing something; maybe this particular parchment was prepared such that it had a thin, easily scraped off layer of dried surface that would show the marks to the doodler for a few minutes before becoming imperceptible for the next 1300 years. Maybe this was a palimpsest, and the marking had pigment present on the parchment before being scraped off, and only the slight compression that carried through into the lower layers remains. Perhaps there is evidence of it being scraped (surface abrasion, or similar) that would rule out pressure carrying through from an upper layer. Perhaps.
But none of that is in the article, only the statement that it was written with a drypoint stylus (with no mention of how certain that was, or what evidence supported it), so I don't see how it's "blatantly obvious" that the simplest, most mundane explanation is incorrect.
But you find it blatantly obvious. I'm curious as to your reasoning. "I'm going to state that the person above me is missing something blatantly obvious and refuse to elaborate when politely questioned" is a much sillier game to play than "please, explain".
Delicious-Day-3614 t1_iy5slv3 wrote
I'm not wasting my time reading that. Find a better use for your time.
[deleted] t1_iy5vajd wrote
[deleted]
myrddyna t1_iybyz32 wrote
My man needs some debate prep.
Delicious-Day-3614 t1_iydk3nk wrote
I really don't. Someone else made a claim, and I responded with the same amount of evidence they had - none. Someone else, who believed their claim without evidence asked me for evidence (absurd). I pointed out that the burden of evidence isn't on me (burden of evidence is a debate term, look it up). Some 18 people who don't understand burden of evidence or confirmation bias decided to side with someone presenting no evidence for their position, while being displeased I refused to show evidence for the opposite position. Meanwhile both claims are largely unverifiable, making it a stupid thing to debate over in the first place.
I simply decided to short circuit a pointless conversation, about something unimportant, with morons.
Since you opened your mouth about debate, and clearly don't understand burden of evidence, you're with the morons. Happy Wednesday.
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