Scan technology reveals secrets of a 300-year-old
letter
Society
March 3, 2021
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2021/03/scan-technology-reveals-secrets-of-a-300-year-old-letter/
The
unopened letter: Photo: Jana Dambrogio (MIT)
An international team of researchers have used
advanced scan technology to read a 300-year-old letter without opening it. The
letter forms part of a treasure trove of 2,600 letters that were written and
sent between 1689 and 1706 but never reached their destination. Undelivered and
unclaimed, these so-called dead letters were kept in a linen-lined leather
chest waterproofed with sealskin where they remained, perfectly preserved, for
the next three hundred years. The prudent owner of the chest was Frenchman
Simon de Brienne. In 1676 De Brienne became postmaster of The Hague and assumed
responsibility for the postal traffic to and from France, the southern
Netherlands and Spain. The chest now forms part of the Museum for Sound and
Vision in The Hague. Many of the letters have since been read, revealing gossip
and scandal as well as reports of political turmoil and heartbreak but some 600
have remained unopened because it would mean breaking the seals or cutting up
the letters. No envelopes were used at the time. The contents of the letters
were protected from prying eyes by means of letter locking, a folding method
particular to the sender which could be very intricate. The team of scientists from
Leiden, Groningen, Utrecht, Oxford and Yale universities, chose one of these
letters to become the object of a scanning technique called X-ray
microtomography, a technique normally used to analyse bone and teeth. ‘We
wanted to read the letter but it’s a historical artefact and opening it by hand
would have damaged it. We had to turn to technology to see if we could read it unopened,’
researcher Rebekah Ahrendt told broadcaster NOS. Jigsaw The letter, dated July
31, 1697, was sent by Jacques Sennaques to his cousin Pierre Le Pers, a French
trader in The Hague at the time. The scans picked up iron particles in the ink
to render an image of the individual letters, while an algorithm unfolded the
letter digitally. The resulting bits had to be put together like a jigsaw
puzzle, Ahrendt said. The contents of the letter revealed that Sennaques asked
for a watermarked death certificate of one Daniel Le Pers. He also asked after
Pierre’s health. ‘The letters are important because they tell us about the life
of ordinary people. These are not letters written by the elite,’ Ahrendt said.
Researcher David van der Linden said team are hoping to adapt the algorithm so
that the other letters can be read as well.
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