Ancient Manuscript Found in an Irish Bog

A recent discovery in a bog around the southern part of the Irish Midlands, has been praised as being among the most significant in archaeology for decades, while its value has been asserted as reaching the Dead Sea scrolls', according to experts, the BBC informs.

This argument was supported by Trinity College Dublin chief of the manuscripts department Dr Bernard Meehan, who asserted that this is the first discovery of a manuscript dating back to the Irish Early Medieval period in two centuries: "Initial impressions place the composition date of the manuscript at about 800AD - but how soon after this date it was lost we may never know".

Archaeologists from the National Museum of Ireland, who found the Psalter, or the so called Book of Psalms, stated that the manuscript may have been lost or dumped almost 1,200 years ago.

In spite of the great amount of time which has passed since then and what it had been through, Museum manager Dr Pat Wallace observed that the pages were "remarkably well preserved". Although not in intact condition, many pages can still be read, he said
:" When we saw it in the bog, we were able to read one of the psalms in Latin". "Nobody has found anything like this for centuries - we are going to find it very hard to find people who know about it", he added.

The discovery was made by a very attentive digger-driver, who immediately acted to protect it upon finding it.

Wallace believes that the importance of the manuscript does not necessarily lay within the fragments themselves or what they may contain, yet in what they represent. "In my wildest hopes, I could only have dreamed of a discovery as fragile and rare as this. It testifies to the incredible richness of the Early Christian civilization of this island and to the greatness of ancient Ireland", he declared.