Thursday, 30 May 2013

Start exploring Derry's Great Parchment Book

A new website has been launched this morning on the Great Parchment Book, Derry's Doomsday Book.

It includes an explanatory video and details of the conservation process, but it also allows us to start exploring and reading the book for ourselves. There's also contextual information about the Ulster Plantation, and you can even search for people and places. It's beautifully presented, as a bonus!

The first public sighting of the Great Parchment Book will be at Derry's Guildhall next month (see blogpost) when a major Planation exhibition opens.

In the meantime, work is continuing on the transcription of the nearly 400-year-old pages and both transcriptions and images will be added to the site, as and when. Once the transcription is complete, the Book History section of the new website will be expanded to take account of new insights into the codicology of the book, and to explain the arrangement of the folios.