Experts say the discovery was first made several years ago

Apr 3, 2014 14:32 GMT  ·  By

Experts who have had the chance to analyze three volumes from the Harvard University Library that were found to feature an unusual type of leather have confirmed recently that the tomes are in fact bound in human skin. The books were first earmarked as suspicious back in 2006, when students found their skin covers to be a little unsettling. 

Finding three volumes in a sea of 15 million is no easy feat, which is why the case has garnered a lot of attention over the years. Apparently, the actual practice of binding old books in human leather is not as weird as you might think. During the 17th century, instances where this happened were fairly common, historians say.

The three books were found in the Harvard Langdell Law Library, Countway Library of Medicine, and the Houghton Collection, respectively, and cover subjects as diverse as medieval law, Roman poetry, and French philosophy. One of the books is written in Spanish, and dates back to 1605. At this point, university officials say, there is no way of knowing just how many such books are in the library.

Establishing the human or animal origin of the skins used in the binding process is made extremely difficult by the tanning process, which oftentimes makes genetic analysis of the samples inconclusive. However, for these three tomes in particular, scientists were able to obtain a positive identification of human tissue, Road Trippers reports.