Since 1922, The Magazine ANTIQUES has been America’s premier publication on the fine and decorative arts, architecture, preservation, and interior design.
Secrets of locked letters revealed Virtual technique was developed to open specially folded letters without damaging their historical contents.
By William J. Broad New York Times March 11, 2021 10:02pm Text size Copy shortlink:
In 1587, hours before her beheading, Mary, Queen of Scots, sent a letter to her brother-in-law Henry III, King of France. But she didn t just sign it and send it off. She folded the paper repeatedly, cut out a piece of the page and left it dangling. She used that strand of paper to sew the letter tight with locking stitches.
In an era before sealed envelopes, this technique, now called letterlocking, was as important for deterring snoops as encryption is to e-mail inb
Scientists read 300-year-old sealed letter without opening it Virtual unfolding allows researchers to look inside intricately folded historical letters without damaging them.
Scientists are using technology to read centuries-old letters sealed using letterlocking. Nature Communications
In a letter, dated July 31, 1697, Jacques Sennacques asks his cousin Pierre Le Pers, a French merchant in The Hague, for a certified copy of a death notice for Daniel Le Pers. That s no revelatory request by any means, but for the past 300 years, the letter has remained sealed away, its contents unseen.
Now, thanks to a technique that let scholars peek inside virtually without damaging the intricately folded historical document, Sennacques request has been uncovered. The new technique could hold promise for unlocking sealed correspondence containing historical gems across time and place.
Scientists read 300-year-old letters without opening them
• 7 min read
Catch up on the developing stories making headlines.STOCK/Getty Images
Unopened letters more than 300 years old that were folded using mysterious techniques have now been read for the first time without opening them, a new study finds.
For centuries, before mass-produced envelopes started proliferating in the 1830s, most letters across the globe were sent using letterlocking, a method of folding letters to become their own envelopes. These intricate techniques also often served to help recipients detect if mail had been tampered with.
For example, during research in the Vatican Secret Archives, conservator Jana Dambrogio at the MIT Libraries unearthed Renaissance letters with odd slits and sliced-off corners. She discovered these were signs these documents were originally locked with a slice of paper slid through a slit and closed with a wax seal. Such letters could not be opened without ripping the paper,
This Renaissance-era letter remained sealed for centuries But experts figured out how to virtually unfold and read it for the first time oregonlive.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from oregonlive.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.