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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Medieval Artist Mystery

During the European Middle Ages, Afghanistan was the only known source of the rare blue stone lapis lazuli, which at the time was ground up and used as a pigment. Modern-day scientists who examined the 1,000 year-old remains of a middle-aged woman in Germany discovered the semi-precious stone in the tartar on her teeth. From that, they concluded the woman was an artist involved in creating illuminated manuscripts, a task usually associated with monks. The find is considered the most direct evidence yet of a woman taking part in the making of high-quality illuminated manuscripts, the lavishly illustrated religious and secular texts of the Middle Ages. And it corroborates other findings that suggest female artisans were not as rare as previously thought. (Christina Warinner/Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History via AP)

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