Pixabay，CC0许可证

该帖子最初是发表的在Springeropen博客上

A well thumbed page, signs of devotional affection on the worn away image of a saint, spilt liquid from a careless reader, microscopic organisms inhabiting the surface, the biological signals captured in parchment manuscripts hold a plethora of hidden information just waiting to be ‘read’.

哈姆雷特：不是用羊皮制成的羊皮纸吗？

Horatio：是的，我的主和小牛。

哈姆雷特（Act V，场景I）

这些文档存储在世界各地的图书馆和档案中，不仅是文本信息的存储，而且正如莎士比亚时代的自我明显（请参阅《哈姆雷特》的报价）也是生物学数据的存储。

可以找到一个有趣的对称性，因为欧洲历史的大部分历史都写在动物的皮肤上，变成了写作媒介，现在代表了现存的最好的历史生物库之一。

就像解密灭绝的脚本一样，揭示这些对象中包含的生物分子信息可以揭示我们永远不会想到的信息。

它为什么如此重要？

随着对生物多样性的越来越关注和维持稀有品种的重要性，羊皮纸是通往中世纪动物的真实情况的窗口。通过查看这些手稿的DNA，我们可以开始看到中世纪或不同的中世纪牲畜与现在的动物的相似或不同，以及通过密集育种计划损失了多少遗传变异。它还可以通过识别所用的动物物种来洞悉历史牲畜经济体，并通过查看动物的性别来告知我们有关杀死模式的信息，甚至可以提供地理起源的证据。

Untapped resource

多亏了策展和保护专业知识，这些宝贵的文档得到了仔细保存，为我们提供了现在可以被认为是非凡的生物库（就保存和出处质量而言），这是迄今为止相对尚未进行的。

The main reason that these documents have been relatively understudied by the scientific community has to do with accessibility.

由于其作为书面信息的记录的重要性，书籍被授予特殊地位，通常不会由其他历史或考古文物分享，这意味着它们的保存至关重要，并且允许的破坏性抽样量是最小的。

的发展non-invasive sampling techniqueshas given unprecedented access to these precious documents, allowing us to shed light on the biological stories held within these manuscripts.

Taking full advantage of the ‘omics revolution we are now at a point where an incredibly small non-invasive sample can give us a wealth of information, which can inform about book production, geographic preferences, sex and breed of animals and even information about the handling, use and storage of the object.

但是，仅仅因为我们有分析大量生物分子数据的方法，我们必须小心，不要过度设计分析以回答一个可能是一个相对简单的问题。

所以你想做生物定性学吗？

Within the new field of biocodicology we hope to emphasise the importance of manuscripts as biological records, not just as a ‘resource’ for the scientific community but also to promote the use of biotechnology to understand more about the manuscripts themselves and their history and use. We have striven to establish biocodicology as truly interdisciplinary field combining expertise from conservators, humanities scholars and scientists to tackle all of these questions.

For that reason we have created what can be considered a'用户指南'什么样的技术可用,they can and can’t answer, and when some routes should be favoured over others. We hope that this review will provide a primer for both humanists and scientists to this truly illuminating field.