Photos Deadly Script?
Co-author Jesper Lier Boldsen discovered the previously undocumented disease FOS while examining the skeletons. "We do not know if FOS was fatal, but it certainly looks painful and just as severe as leprosy," Lund Rasmussen said. While working on the study, the researchers also noted that, due to different carbon signatures, some of the medieval individuals ate a mostly marine, fish-filled diet. Lund Rasmussen suggests that the others may have "preferred beer and meat, rather than fish and water." The Cistercians were, in principal, not allowed to eat meat from any four-footed animals, but the Franciscans do not appear to have always observed this practice. Although modern seafood may now contain high levels of mercury from environmental pollution, exposure from food would have been unlikely during the medieval period. Other religious groups may have experienced mercury poisoning due to scripting holy texts. In a separate study, scientists from the Soreq Nuclear Research Center in Israel and the Israel Museum found cinnabar on four fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which include passages from the Hebrew Bible. University of Southern Denmark historian Kurt Villads Jensen, who did not work on the latest Danish study, told Discovery News that he believes the medieval mercury findings seem "very convincing" and that he has "absolutely no objections to the historical part of the paper, which is my main research area." Lund Rasmussen and his team radiocarbon dated some of the studied bones, but they hope to do this for even more individuals from the test sample group, as this could reveal additional information about the possible link between mercury exposure and red ink use. By 1536, books were no longer written by hand, but were instead printed, so the scientists suspect the toxic red ink literally faded from the monastic picture. Related Links: Jennifer Viegas' blog: Born Animal |
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