Lost works of Archimedes turned up beneath prayers.
In 1229 a monk scraped an old manuscript and wrote a prayer book over it; in 1906 scholar Heiberg spotted Archimedes underneath, and the full text was finally read using X-rays.
More amazing facts
- 1215 · 1223 Eight years after Magna Carta, the princes of Rus first met the Mongols and were crushed on the Kalka River.
- 1215 · 1225 The original Magna Carta lasted about ten weeks.
- 1230 · 1492 Medieval scholars knew the Earth was round.
- 1237 · 1248 Korean monks carved the Buddhist canon onto 81,258 wooden blocks, and not one error has been found in its 52 million characters.
- 1238 · 1242 The Battle on the Ice (1242) came just four years after work began on the Alhambra in Granada (1238).
- 1240 1240: in summer Alexander beat the Swedes on the Neva; in December Batu took Kiev.