July 29th, 2006 by The Bosphorus
Ever since reading Thomas Cahill’s book, How The Irish Saved Civilization, I’ve been interested in ancient Irish civilization, especially the Christian influence there. It is fascinating to me because the culture developed so richly and off in the hinterlands of the decayed Roman Empire. Eventually Christian Rome brought the Celtic church in line with itself, but not before Irish Christians sent missionaries through out the British Isles and much of Northern Europe.
A man digging peat in an Irish bog uncovered a psalter sometime this month. Evidently he was out using his bulldozer and saw the little brown manuscript unearth. He had the sense to cover it back up with moist dirt and take it to the authorities. The bbc reports on it here.
It is ironic that a book written near the end of one empire should resurface at the seeming end of another.
July 29th, 2006 at 7:26 pm
I heard about that book. That was completely weird, that this book made of leather vellum would be in a bog for 1000 years or so, and be in a passible condition. The thing I read said that it’ll take a few months of work to get the thing in a position where they can read it, but thats cool as hell.
Last year I went through a big thing where I was into the history of northeast europe, the whole Anglo-Saxon thing, and Rome’s influence on Europe. Its facinating stuff.