17th century letter read without being opened

[FfFfFfFF 43,231]

In a world first for the study of historic documents, an unopened letter written in 1697 has been read by researchers without breaking the seal.

The letter, dated 31 July 1697 and sent from French merchant Jacques Sennacques in Lille to his cousin Pierre Le Pers in The Hague, had been closed using “letterlocking”, a process in which the letter is folded to become its own envelope, in effect locking it to keep it private.

The international team of researchers from universities including MIT, King’s College London, Queen Mary University London, Utrecht and Leiden, worked with X-ray microtomography scans of the letter, which use X-rays to see inside the document, slice by slice, and create a 3D image. 

“It has been a few weeks since I wrote to you in order to ask you to have drawn up for me a legalised excerpt of the death of sieur Daniel Le Pers, which took place in The Hague in the month of December 1695, without hearing from you,” runs the letter. “I am writing to you a second time in order to remind you of the pains that I took on your behalf. It is important to me to have this extract & you will do me a great pleasure to procure it for me & to send me at the same time news of your health & of all the family.”

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/02/researchers-read-sealed-17th-century-letter-without-opening-virtual-unfolding-x-ray

[HermioneT 1,037]

This is fascinating! Thanks for sharing.

[PunkTheFunk 110,276]

Science never fails to amaze me. 

[TimisaMonster 27,790]

Guess she never got the "failed to send message" notice...

[CautiousLurker 12,163]

OH NO, they found out about Daniel 
I must flee this country at once 

[Killa 11,766]

mindblowing

[Bebe 16,088]

This feels like a super high tech convoluted version of getting a messenger notification, reading what it say's, but not opening it so the other person doesn't see that they've been left on read.

[bionic 19,154]

1 hour ago, TimisaMonster said:

Guess she never got the "failed to send message" notice...

More like left on read 

[KanyeWest 18,229]

Just open it i dont understand why make it more complicated

[Galactic Mess 1,374]

6 minutes ago, KanyeWest said:

Just open it i dont understand why make it more complicated

I think the paper might be very fragile and they might want to preserve it.

[HermioneT 1,037]

21 minutes ago, KanyeWest said:

Just open it i dont understand why make it more complicated

Old paper (often also the case in old book) is extremely delicate and might just crumble into dust when touched. It's probably easier to use this technic than open it and put the pieces together to read. Also old ink fades sometimes when exposed to light or other circumstances after being "contained" for so long.

[TimisaMonster 27,790]

8 hours ago, bionic said:

More like left on read 

But...that would be he got the letter, read it, and never wrote back