Researchers have demonstrated a nondestructive method for recovering genetic material from historic parchment, potentially turning centuries-old manuscripts into sources of evidence about both documents and the animals used to make them.
The technique was tested on 91 manuscripts held in the Rubenstein Library at Duke University. The documents originated from locations ranging from England to Ethiopia and date from the late eighth century through the early 20th century.
Parchment is made from animal skin, meaning that cellular material can remain alongside writing, maps and other records on its surface. To collect it, researchers gently rubbed each document with a dry cytology brush—the type of brush also used for Pap smears. The team then removed the collected material and applied next-generation sequencing methods to isolate and amplify genetic sequences.
According to the research report from North Carolina State University, the sampling did not damage the manuscripts. That result addresses a central difficulty in parchment research: libraries, museums and other collections may be reluctant to permit sampling when it could permanently harm culturally important objects.
The recovered DNA could provide information about the animals whose skins became parchment and, potentially, about the history of domesticated species. Researchers say future analyses could examine how livestock breeds developed, how farm animals changed over time and what diseases affected them.
Genetic evidence may also help investigate where and when individual manuscripts were produced. Because parchment was used across Europe, the Middle East and parts of Africa for many centuries, the material could contribute to research on trade routes, agricultural practices and everyday life, alongside the historical information recorded in the texts themselves.
The researchers describe historic parchment as a largely unexplored source that brings genetic analysis into conversation with medieval history, archaeology and other fields. The study, “Adventures in the Animal Archive: New Techniques for the Genetic Analysis of Parchment Manuscripts,” was published in Manuscript Studies: A Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies. The authors include researchers from North Carolina State University, Duke University and Western Sydney University.
