The Week in Links (10/9-10/15)

One of those detective stories that make my heart beat just a little faster, and proof that archival work is worth the hassle. I also like how sanguine everyone is about the fact that it showed up in a Virginia library: "'Documents scatter and manuscripts travel,' said [George] Greenia."

W&M professor chronicles history of 700-year-old missing Spanish document

And an interesting article on art valuation (Islamic art, in this particular case) and the auction house scene:

When Auction Estimates Go Haywire


As a medievalist and an anglophile, I should be very excited by the possibilities, but all I can think is that this going to be like Jurassic Park with microscopes. Sequencing the Y. pestis genome? Great! Vivifying an infectious agent that traveled very quickly on its own long prior to the age of the airplane? Substantially less great. 


Scientists Sequence Genome of Ancient Plague Bacterium