An ancient copy of the Book of Psalms unearthed last week in an Irish bog could be 1,200 years old and could be Ireland’s equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls, according to an article in today’s Irish Times. The book, whose existence was disclosed on Tuesday by the National Museum of Ireland, is handwritten on vellum pages with a leather cover. It lies open to Psalm 83. Specialists are able to date such books from the characteristics of the handwriting and bookmaking.

The book, if it had indeed lain untouched since around AD 800, presumably did so because the waterlogged, anoxic environment of the bog inhibited the organic decay and animal life that would otherwide have turned the volume long ago into soil. Experts could only speculate on how it had ended up in the bog in the first place.