Who’s peeking from behind a 14th-century letter? A medieval IT guru! Hundreds of years ago, manuscripts were the ultimate information technology: complex, beautiful, and powerful enough to reshape society and values. Manuscripts were not just texts — they were powerful technologies of information and communication that connected medieval Finland to the wider European world.
In CHARM, we study how this technology shaped Finland’s past, and train the next generation of manuscript “gurus” to keep the story alive.
This week, CHARM’s Tuuli Kasso introduced our new interns, Elly Okinyo and Li Tian, to the Dino-Lite microscope, a handy modern tool for exploring the fine details of parchment, inks, and pigments of the fragments at the National Library of Finland. This information will be further combined with XRF analysis, and results about the parchment itself.
Looks like the medieval IT gurus have some competition — the next generation is already logging in!