Hyperspectral imager reveals author of 17th cent. manuscript

Recently, the SEPIA Quantitative Hyperspectral Imager at the Nationaal Archief (National Archives of the Netherlands, The Hague) was used to investigate a manuscript from the collection of the Utrecht University Library (Utrecht, The Netherlands). The manuscript (Ms. 1478) was manufactured around 1700. Authored by the Dutch merchant Joan Josua Ketelaar it contains a very early Hindustani grammar in Dutch language. Two other manuscripts with Ketelaar’s grammar have been known to exist for some time, and they are now kept in the Nationaal Archief and the Foundation Custodia Library (Paris). The existence of the third manuscript in Utrecht had been unknown until several years ago, because the author’s name had been crossed out deliberately at some point during its 300 year history.
In order to prove that the writing crossed out on the title page and on page 2r did in fact contain the author’s name as suspected, the corresponding sections on these pages were recorded with the SEPIA instrument. Within only a few minutes, the researchers discovered that the ink used to cross out the writing is transparent in the near-infrared wavelength range. The underlying original ink is obviously of a different type and it remains opaque so that the full name of the author Ketelaar can be read very easily in the recorded infrared spectral images.

In comparison with the other two manuscripts, for which the names of the copyists are known, details in the contents of the Utrecht version suggest that it might have been copied by Ketelaar himself.
For more information on the research around this manuscript, please follow this link to the corresponding website of the University Library. 

< back to overview: news