To the untutored eye, it looks like a lump of mud, but experts say that an 8th-century psalter found in an Irish peat bog is exceptionally significant.

Even though the vellum pages of the early Book of Psalms are a crumpled mass, they are likening it to the Book of Kells, one of the world’s most beautiful illuminated manuscripts.

As the find is thought to date from the late 8th century, the illuminators of both books would have been contemporaries, within ten or twenty years of each other. The two books — among few survivals of an age of outstanding manuscript production — are comparable in their large-format size.

The Book of Psalms — now undergoing a long-term conservation project — was uncovered by chance by a bulldozer digging peat moss in Faddan More Bog, Co Tipperary.

The low level of oxygen and the presence of an antibiotic substance called sphagnum mean that peat bogs offer excellent conditions for the preservation of organic remains.

Conservators have no doubt that they can separate the compacted leaves, although it is a complex process that will take years and the centres of all the pages have rotted.

The remains of a layer of a concealing mat and a leather carrying-bag suggest that the psalter had been hidden deliberately, perhaps to keep it safe from a Viking raid.

Patrick Wallace, the director of the National Museum of Ireland, said: “In my wildest hopes, I could only have dreamt of a discovery as fragile and rare as this. It testifies to the incredible richness of the early Christian civilisation of this island and to the greatness of ancient Ireland.”

The psalter, found last July, is now in cold storage. Rolly Read, head of conservation at the National Museum, said that it was “an incredibly important find” and that the museum was trying to find out as much as possible about it without disturbing it. “It’s still in its excavated state, fully saturated with bog water, which has a sterilising effect. When we work on it, it’s in a cooled room, at 14C (59F).”

Specialists from the museum and Trinity College Dublin — which was given the Book of Kells in the 17th century — are collaborating with international experts on an ambitious project to separate the more than 100 leaves, each measuring 32.4cm by 22cm (12.7in by 8.6in) and with about 30 lines to a page. Decoration on the first page includes an interlaced border and the figure of an eagle.

The psalter, written in Latin, is still in its original binding and is, said Mr Read, of “a very high standard”. Such lavish books would have been produced in scriptoria attached to important monasteries. There were once six such monasteries within about 15km (9 miles) of Faddan More. The nearest was Birr, 7km away.

Eamonn Kelly, the Keeper of Irish Antiquities at the National Museum, said that recorded attacks on the monastery suggest why such a valuable manuscript may have been concealed in the bog.

CELTIC MASTERS OF CALLIGRAPHY

Source: Times database

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