Lasers to shed light on mysteries of Book of Kells

Lasers to shed light on mysteries of Book of Kells
By David McKittrick, Ireland Correspondent
Published: 08 June 2007
Independent UK

It has been described as the most beautiful book in the world. However, it is overflowing not only with beauty but with mystery, its origin obscure, its exceptionally gifted authors unknown.

The Book of Kells, one of the glories of Europe's Middle Ages, was produced by monks well over a thousand years ago, yet it still speaks to the modern world.

More than half a million people visit Dublin's Trinity College each year to examine this lavish piece of religious art, with its dazzling decoration and endlessly inventive combination of high seriousness and bizarre wit.

Its creation and its quality are extraordinary, its survival no less so. The myths and legends surrounding it are legion, including tales of marauding Vikings, Oliver Cromwell's troops, and thieves who once tossed it into a bog.

Those who travel to the Old Library building at Trinity are following a visitor to Ireland who, a thousand years ago, wrote: "Here you may see the face of majesty, divinely drawn. Look more keenly at it and you will penetrate to the very shrine of art. You will make out intricacies, so delicate and so subtle, so full of knots and links, with colours so fresh and vivid, that you might say that all this was the work of an angel, and not of a man."

Now, modern scientific techniques are being applied to tease out some of the unknowns. The first step is to subject it to analysis by laser in order to know the make-up of the colours and establish how they have retained their power and vigour.

In this process, a laser beam is directed at a small point on a piece of pigment. According to the Trinity librarian, Robin Adams: "That source of energy excites the particles of the pigment which respond and bounce back the energy in a particular wavelength. From that pattern a machine can identify what material is used."

The lasers, which will not damage the book, are the first part of a long-term detective process which is expected to include applying infra-red rays and X-rays. DNA testing would be more problematical.

At the moment, the monks who brought the book into being are thought to have used a range of substances. These include mundane ingredients such as vegetable material for the greens and browns. But some of the input is believed to have been international, with the monks turning to exotic substances such as Aghan lapis lazuli for blue, and Mediterranean insects for red. Results from the laser study are due to be published later this year and will have new information on the colours.

For the monks who made the book around 800AD, assembling such materials was a mammoth task. The skins of almost 200 calves - the experts would love to know where they came from - were needed to provide the pages. The skins were treated with lime, then stretched. This was the basic material on which the monks applied their work, which consists of the Bible's four gospels in Latin. As the sumptuous ornamentation indicates, this was not a working text but something special.

No one knows for sure where it was produced although according to one version it was written, or at least started, at the Scottish island monastery of Iona founded by Columba, a major figure of the Christian church in Ireland and Scotland. The book could then have been relocated to another monastery in the town of Kells, County Meath, whose name it bears. Since it is known that Iona was attacked several times by Viking longships, it may have been moved to the inland site to safeguard it from the plundering Norsemen.

But safety was elusive since, in 1006, "the great Gospel was wickedly stolen during the night", according to one account. When it was found, a few weeks later, the thieves had torn off the cover, which was reputedly adorned with gold and jewels. But most of its interior was intact, apart from a few pages that were lost and some slight water damage. The book remained at Kells for centuries more.

Its craftsmen, however, are lost to history. One of the few certainties is that a number of hands produced it.

In an endearingly human touch, the exquisiteness of its artwork eclipses the fact that the words themselves are riddled with mistakes. A former Trinity librarian, Peter Brown, notes, with faint disapproval: "Its text is full of errors of many kinds, very few of which have been corrected - errors of spelling, errors in Latin grammar and even errors showing inability to understand the meaning of the Latin."

Theseslips pale when compared to the exuberant artwork which ranges from representations of religious figures to dizzyingly complex geometric designs - including mazes. Some of the most intricate work is only fully visible with the aid of a strong magnifying glass.

The book is also replete with a menagerie of animals including fish, birds, cats, mice, hens, lions, horses and wolves. With surrealistic touches, some of them have swapped heads; others are locked in combat.

The book has beenrebound several times. In one 18th century episode, described by a historian as disastrous, its pages were trimmed by a bookbinder.

Today the book seems beyond the reach of Vikings, robbers and negligent bookbinders. Although science is being applied, the cardinal rule is that no harm must be caused. Yet, though modern techniques are expected to throw some light on its mysterious depths, no one expects they will resolve all the unanswered questions that surround it.