Scientists have used digital scanning technologies to virtually unravel an ancient scroll that was once thought destroyed. 
 
 A TEAM of British scientists are set to make the trip to New Zealand this month, all in the hopes of unlocking the secrets hidden in a 600-year-old scroll. 
 
 The 15th-century English manuscript, known as the Canterbury Roll, is the only genealogocial scroll in the whole southern hemisphere, making it an extremely unique and prized artefact. 
 
 Despite being in the care of the University of Canterbury (UC) for over a century, experts believe they are still yet to uncover all of the scroll’s hidden meanings. 
 
 UC Senior Lecturer Dr Chris Jones says it is crazy that no one really knows about its existence. 
 
 “The Canterbury Roll is the most significant and substantial medieval artefact in New Zealand. For 100 years, UC has been the guardian of this unique 600-year-old treasure, which tells the history of England from its mythical origins to the late Middle Ages,” he said. 
 
 “No-one has anything like this in New Zealand or Australia. And it’s utterly bonkers that no-one really knows we have it, because it’s magnificent!” 
 
 The ancient document dates back to the Wars of the Roses, a series of English civil wars fought for control of the throne of England, which were the inspiration for George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones. 
 
 The battles spanned over three centuries, sparked by a conflict between two noble British families, the Lancasters and Yorks, with a number of major players in the historic war adapted into characters for the popular fantasy series. 
 
 “The Wars of the Roses are what Games of Thrones is based on, and this is the Wars of the Roses laid out across a 5-metre, visually spectacular document,” Dr Jones said. 
 
 “It features contributions from both the key players in the Wars of the Roses — it was originally drawn up by the Lancastrian side in the conflict but it fell into Yorkist hands and they rewrote part of it.” 
 
 The final secrets harboured in the ancient text could soon be revealed, as the British scientific research team prepares to visit the university in Christchurch next week to carry out in-depth testing of the Roll. They say they’re looking for “hidden” writing and any other features. 
 
 “The UK scientific team will be carrying out a series of tests on the Roll with specialised equipment,” Dr Jones said. 
 
 “The science itself is new: it’s groundbreaking work that has never before been applied to this type of manuscript.” 
 
 In order to make the scrolls secrets more accessible, UC staff and students are working to translate and digitise the medieval manuscript, with the efforts known as the “Canterbury Roll Project”. 
 
 The full digitised Roll will be available to the public in 2018, with stage one of the digital version already accessible on the university’s website. 
 
 Dr Jones says the digital version of the Roll will be ground breaking and is set to be more advanced than any other document of its kind. 
 
 “People have released ‘digital’ rolls in the UK and the US but they tend to be static photos. This is a fully scrolling, online and zoomable text,” he said. 
 
 “It’s considerably more sophisticated than anything that exists in the world today.” 
 
 Many important aspects of the project, such as the Latin transcription and English translation, have been spearheaded by students at the University of Canterbury. 
 
 “The Latin transcription is the work of current and former UC students; the translation is the work of a current UC Master of Arts student,” Dr Jones said. ||||| UC to bring 600-year-old treasure to the world 
 
 UC academics and students to bring 600-year-old treasure to the world 
 
 University of Canterbury staff and students are working to translate and digitise a unique medieval manuscript to make it accessible to the world, and a team of British scientists is visiting Christchurch in January to reveal hidden information about the 600-year-old scroll's origins. 
 
 The 15th-century English illuminated genealogical scroll, known as the Canterbury Roll, dates to the Wars of the Roses. It was acquired by the University of Canterbury (UC) in 1918 and remains the only genealogical roll in the southern hemisphere. 
 
 The “Canterbury Roll Project” is designed to make the unique scroll more accessible, medieval historian UC Senior Lecturer Dr Chris Jones says. 
 
 “Once owned by the original Nurse Maude, Sybilla Maude, the Canterbury Roll is the most significant and substantial medieval artefact in New Zealand. For 100 years, UC has been the guardian of this unique 600-year-old treasure, which tells the history of England from its mythical origins to the late Middle Ages,” he says. 
 
 “No-one has anything like this in New Zealand or Australia. And it’s utterly bonkers that no-one really knows we have it, because it’s magnificent!” 
 
 To mark the centenary of its acquisition, UC is releasing a new digital edition and translation of the Canterbury Roll. 
 
 “Using cutting edge technology that allows users to interact directly with the manuscript, UC is making the Roll available to the world accompanied by a brand new English translation,” says Dr Jones. The digitised Canterbury Roll will be available to the public in 2018. 
 
 A British scientific research team will visit UC in the second week of January to carry out in-depth testing of the Roll to look for ‘hidden’ writing and any other features. 
 
 “The UK scientific team will be carrying out a series of tests on the Roll with specialised equipment. The science itself is new: it’s ground-breaking work that has never before been applied to this type of manuscript.” 
 
 The leader of the UK scientific team is Professor Haida Liang, Head of Imaging & Sensing for Archaeology, Art History & Conservation research group at Nottingham Trent University, UK. 
 
 About the Canterbury Roll 
 
 A unique item in the University of Canterbury’s Special Collections, the Canterbury Roll is a unique example of a medieval manuscript in New Zealand and Australia, Dr Jones says. 
 
 “It’s visually striking. The Wars of the Roses are what ‘Games of Thrones’ is based on, and this is the Wars of the Roses laid out across a 5-metre, visually spectacular document. It is not the only manuscript roll from this period to exist in the world, but, uniquely, it features contributions from both the key players in the Wars of the Roses – it was originally drawn up by the Lancastrian side in the conflict but it fell into Yorkist hands and they re-wrote part of it.” 
 
 The Canterbury Roll was owned by the famous Cantabrian known as Nurse Maude, Sybilla Maude. 
 
 “We are unclear how her family acquired it, although the family believed in 1918 that they had owned it since the Middle Ages,” Dr Jones says. 
 
 Canterbury College professors bought the Roll as part of an effort to help foster a sense of British identity in the closing days of WWI, according to the historian. 
 
 “The Roll is both an important part of European history and – after a century – an important part of the New Zealand story,” Dr Jones says. 
 
 “In particular, it embodies the way attitudes to colonialism have changed: it began as celebration of New Zealand as a British colony; from the 1970s it was hidden away as an embarrassing reminder of that colonial past; today, it has been dusted off and is used in comparative teaching to explore differences and similarities between western concepts and whakapapa.” 
 
 About the Canterbury Roll Project 
 
 The digital edition of the Canterbury Roll is ground-breaking, Dr Jones says. 
 
 “People have released ‘digital’ rolls in the UK and the US but they tend to be static photos. This is a fully ‘scrolling’, online and zoomable text. It’s considerably more sophisticated than anything that exists in the world today.” 
 
 He’s particularly proud of the student involvement in the Canterbury Roll Project. 
 
 “The digitisation project is a showcase for UC students: The Latin transcription is the work of current and former UC students; the translation is the work of a current UC Master of Arts student. The project is based in the UC Arts Digital Lab but driven through the student internship programme. In 2017 alone we have had 15 UC students working on the project at 300- and 400-level via internships schemes,” he says. 
 
 “It provides a fantastic way for students to develop transferable skills ranging from team work to direct work in coding. It demonstrates students can learn 'real world' transferable skills relating to group work and coding via Arts projects.” 
 
 © Scoop Media ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. 
 
 / Updated By Avalon Zoppo 
 
 The centuries-old remains of five archbishops of Canterbury were uncovered underneath a London museum by a construction site manager in what historians are calling an "incredible and astonishing" find. 
 
 The Garden Museum, which is housed in a church next to the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lambeth Palace, has been closed for two years as construction crews refurbish the building to make room for additional exhibits. 
 
 Karl Patten, the site manager for Rooff LTD, had no idea that he would make a major historical discovery when he took on the job. While lifting 3,300-pound stones one day in 2015, contractors came across a concrete block that lay atop a flight of stairs leading to a tomb. 
 
 "We got a camera at the end of a stick and discovered numerous coffins, and one of them had a gold crown on top of it," Patten said in a video posted to the museum's website. 
 
 The vault contained 20 coffins, one of which was identified as that of Archbishop of Canterbury Richard Bancroft, who led the committee that produced the King James translation of the Bible in 1611. 
 
 Three other identified coffins belonged to John Bettesworth, Dean of the Arches (that is, judge on the ecclesiastical court) for the archbishop of Canterbury from 1710 to 1751; John Moore, the archbishop of Canterbury from 1783 to 1805; and Moore's wife, Catherine. 
 
 Museum Director Christopher Woodward said that when he got the call from Patten that day, he was certain that something had gone wrong. 
 
 "Every archaeologist in London has looked at this building. But nobody told us to expect to find anything," Woodward said in the video. "I came in thinking, 'This sounds like bad news.' And wow, it's the crown of an archbishop gleaming in the dark." 
 
 The church has a long history, having been built in the 11th century by Edward the Confessor's sister across from Westminster Abbey, Woodward said. In the 1960s, the congregation moved and the church was set to be demolished, but a group of volunteers rescued the building and dedicated it as a shrine to a gardener from the 17th century, John Tradescant. 
 
 Wesley Kerr, chairman of the Heritage Lottery Fun, which is funding the project, described the discovery as "one of the most incredible things [he's] seen." 
 
 "This is really astonishing," Patten said. "To know that possibly the person that commissioned the King James Bible is buried is the most incredible discovery and greatly adds to the texture of this project."
– A 600-year-old scroll describing the wars that inspired Game of Thrones might not be done making its mark on history. For the first time, the Canterbury Roll—detailing England's history until the Middle Ages—is being published online, making it accessible to the world, reports News.com.au. (The first stage is here, and the rest should be out in 2018.) As New Zealand's University of Canterbury celebrates 100 years since it acquired the 16-foot genealogical scroll, British scientists will begin studying the 15th-century manuscript next week in the hope of discovering hidden features. Using specialized equipment, they'll complete “ground-breaking work that has never before been applied to this type of manuscript,” according to a release. Researchers have so far gathered that the manuscript dates to the Wars of the Roses, a series of wars fought for England's throne by two noble families: the Lancasters and Yorks, who became the Lannisters and Starks in George RR Martin's Game of Thrones, per Mental Floss. Created by the Lancaster side, the "visually spectacular" scroll then "fell into Yorkist hands and they rewrote part of it," says researcher Chris Jones. He notes the University of Canterbury acquired it in 1918 from a Canterbury nurse named Sybilla Maude, whose family claimed to have been keeping it since the Middle Ages, per Radio New Zealand. It's now "the most significant and substantial medieval artifact in New Zealand," Jones says, adding that the public can "interact directly with the manuscript." Check out how here.