Newly discovered documents about legendary King Arthur hidden in unlikeliest of places for 800 years

Historians recently unveiled a rare 13th-century document depicting the tales of King Arthur and Merlin – and its survival is considered a miracle.The discovery was announced by the University of Cambridge on March 25.The manuscript is part of the Suite Vulgate du Merlin, a French-language rendering of the story of King Arthur.Arthur has been depicted as a legendary Briton king for several centuries, though his existence has been doubted by most historians. In 2019, the fragile manuscript was discovered in an unlikely place in a Cambridge library – tucked in as the binding for an old book.“The manuscript had survived the centuries after being recycled and repurposed in the 1500s as the cover for a property record from Huntingfield Manor in Suffolk, owned by the Vanneck family of Heveningham,” the university’s statement noted.“It meant the remarkable discovery was folded, torn and even stitched into the binding of the book – making it almost impossible for Cambridge experts to access it, read it or confirm its origins,” the university said in a news release.Thanks to modern technology – including multi-spectral imaging, computed tomography and 3D modeling – experts were able to scan and create a virtual image of the manuscript without risking any damage to it.“Using mirrors, prisms, magnets and other tools, the team at CHIL [Cultural Heritage Imaging Laboratory] carefully photographed each section of the fragment,” the university said. “The hundreds of resulting images were then painstakingly reassembled digitally, much like a jigsaw, to create a coherent image of the text.”“By manipulating the digital images, the team could simulate what the document might look like if it were physically opened.”Each copy of the Suite Vulgate du Merlin was unique, as they were individually handwritten by medieval scribes, and fewer than 40 copies are known to exist. The Cambridge copy was written between 1275 and 1315. “The text is writte...