# Inks and Skins

The manuscripts created from calfskin by secular scholars in Ireland prior to 1600 contain a wealth of tales and poetry, together with historical, legal and scientific writing. The vernacular traditions contained in these books are extraordinary witnesses to Gaelic civilization and learning on the western limit of the known world. Inks and Skins seeks to unearth that narrative by focusing on how and by whom these handmade books were created. Inks and Skins is an interdisciplinary project dedicated to the investigation of the materiality of the late-medieval Gaelic manuscript. The research has involved a combination of enhanced visual analysis, multi-spectral imaging, and X-Ray Fluorescence scanning, together with a range of complementary spectroscopies and techniques. The object has been to understand the writing supports and the composition of inks and pigments used by the secular scholars who created Gaelic vellum hand-written books in the period 1100-1600.

- Kind: Talk
- Year: 2023
- By: Library Of Congress. Preservation Directorate
- Archive: [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2025661434/)
- Licence or status: Rights statement at the Library of Congress (as the archive states it)
- Credit: Library of Congress
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/loc/2025661434?play=1)