Biocodicology - A Deeper Dive

[Bernd]

Finding a hair or eyelash stuck in ink or paint would be ideal but I'd guess a diligent scribe would have removed such immediately. The scans of the VM are quite good and something like this should be visible.

What do you think about DNA in the ink? Is it more likely to be preserved or destroyed there relative to on the parchment? It would seem to me that such DNA would be deposited before the ink is dry and so will exclude DNA from a later period

The idea of looking under paint is good but I don't think it's feasible due to its destructive approach.

I'm not familiar with the exact composition of the ink used in the VM but iron gall ink is among the worst storage agents for DNA I can think of. It's acidic which alone promotes hydrolyzation and depurination and tannic acid acts as a powerful DNA killer in combination with Cu(II) by creating reactive oxygen species. It can also crosslink and intercalate DNA making it unreadable and ultimately tannins are also known to inhibit PCR. I'd say the ink is even worse for DNA sequencing than boggy soil.
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Apart from that, even if we stick to less harsh paint instead of ink, we would likely need to scrape off a considerable amount to get even a trace of human DNA, thus causing considerable damage to the VM.

But all of this is for the real biocodicologists to test out on expendable manuscripts, surely would make several good PhD theses.