Secrets of Real-Life Game of Thrones Revealed
A team of British scientists are set to make the trip to New Zealand this month, all in the hopes of unlocking the secrets hidden in the 600-year-old Canterbury Roll, the only genealogical scroll in the whole southern hemisphere.
Despite being in the care of the University of Canterbury for over a century, experts believe they are yet to uncover all of the prized scroll’s hidden meanings.
University of Canterbury senior lecturer Dr Chris Jones says it is crazy that no one really knows about its existence.
“The Canterbury Roll is the most significant and substantial medieval artefact in New Zealand. For 100 years, [the university] has been the guardian of this unique 600-year-old treasure, which tells the history of England from its mythical origins to the late Middle Ages,” Jones said.
“No one has anything like this in New Zealand or Australia. And it’s utterly bonkers that no one really knows we have it because it’s magnificent.”
The ancient document dates back to the Wars of the Roses, a series of English civil wars fought for control of the throne of England, which were the inspiration for George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones.
“The Wars of the Roses are what Games of Thrones is based on, and this is the Wars of the Roses laid out across a [five-metre], visually spectacular document,” Jones said.
In order to make the scroll’s secrets more accessible, university staff and students are working to translate and digitise the medieval manuscript, with the efforts known as the “Canterbury Roll Project.”
The full digitised Roll will be available to the public in 2018, with stage one of the digital version already accessible on the university’s website.
Jones said the digital version of the Roll will be groundbreaking and is set to be more advanced than any other document of its kind.
“People have released ‘digital’ rolls in the UK and the US but they tend to be static photos. This is a fully scrolling, online and zoomable text,” he said.
The roll was purchased by the University of Canterbury in 1918 from the Maude family of Christchurch.
Original article by Ally Foster, New York Post, January, 4, 2018.
Photo by University of Canterbury.
