Of particular interest to researchers in this process was a trove of more than 3,000 300-year-old letters that were collected by a European postmaster. Over the course of a few years, researchers studied 250,000 letters to create the “first systematization of letterlocking techniques.” Through this process, researchers can not only know the secrets held in sealed letters but also better understand the various techniques used to lock letters.
But with the help of a medical scanner, which can produce a three-dimensional x-ray image, researchers created algorithms to virtually flatten a locked letter. While x-ray technology to study historical documents, like scrolls or documents only folded once or twice, is relatively common, locked letters have remained less studied due to their difficult nature.
That was until a recently published report in Nature Communications revealed that a team of MIT researchers, led by MIT Libraries conservator Jana Dambrogio, have found a way to virtually unlock letters through x-ray microtomography. So, researchers have had to guess at the contents of letter or commit to destroying a letter by cutting it open. Thousands of letters kept in museums and collections around the world remain locked, as it would be too dangerous to unfold them. For centuries, letterlocking was a common, daily practice right up until mass-produced envelopes became popular in the 1830s. With this process, the letter itself become its own envelope, not dissimilar to the rudimentary ways you might have folded notes to pass in class a child.
#Letter unfolder series#
However, a team of MIT researchers have developed a way to virtually unfold locked letters, revealing their secrets.Ī letter is “locked,” so to speak, through a series of folds that would deter messengers – or anyone who intercepted a letter – from peeking at its contents. These locking techniques have withstood the test of time, preventing contemporary researchers from opening letters, now sealed for centuries. Before the days of envelopes, letterlocking was the go-to method to ensure your letter arrived at its destination without any tampering. Writing a letter isn’t the most common of activities these days, but when you do put pen to paper, the envelope is perhaps the least tedious part of the process.
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