Hooray for modern technologies.

A while ago, a fragment of a medieval Merlin story manuscript was found in Cambridge - as part of a 16th century binding. The fragment was left in situ and not taken out and flattened as would have been done, say, 30 years ago, because its re-use is, in itself, a thing of historical interest.

Instead, modern imaging technologies were used to record, digitise, and virtually unfold the parchment piece. You can see the results, and read the full report, here.

Preserving the find as-is has become more and more an option that is considered upon finding something - whether it's a manuscript fragment like here, or something else such as a belt buckle with mineralised textiles on it, or a textile with dirt on it. In some cases, it's necessary to remove dirt to prevent further degrading, but for the belt buckle... well. Unfortunately there's still too many textile imprints or textile residues cleaned off like they're just ugly and in the way, but things like this manuscript do make me hope that at some point, every artefact will be preserved as completely as possible.