What I find most fascinating about things like that is that when you look at the pictures of the book you see an old, shriveled up, bent, corroded, bland, demure type of book; but I am sure that when this book was new it was an object of perfection.
It's kind of like how when we look at old pictures of "olden times" there is a certain perception or assumption about things and way of life because you are looking at images that are black and white and washed out and people have that corpse look to them simply due to the nature of the technology. Reality was quite different though, in reality that world that we think of as being black and white and populated with corpse looking people was more or less just as colorful as the world you and I live in.
I don't even know if it would be possible with this artifact, but I am sure you could assemble some master book binders and maybe some metallurgists or blacksmiths in order to painstakingly reconstruct the book using the same techniques and materials, yet without the possible exponentially more experienced skill level of the original master artisan.
The old masters or centuries ago, the men and women that created things by hand and skill that had been passed down for generations and which have largely been lost with industrialization have my utter most respect and reverence.
It's kind of like how when we look at old pictures of "olden times" there is a certain perception or assumption about things and way of life because you are looking at images that are black and white and washed out and people have that corpse look to them simply due to the nature of the technology. Reality was quite different though, in reality that world that we think of as being black and white and populated with corpse looking people was more or less just as colorful as the world you and I live in.
I don't even know if it would be possible with this artifact, but I am sure you could assemble some master book binders and maybe some metallurgists or blacksmiths in order to painstakingly reconstruct the book using the same techniques and materials, yet without the possible exponentially more experienced skill level of the original master artisan.
The old masters or centuries ago, the men and women that created things by hand and skill that had been passed down for generations and which have largely been lost with industrialization have my utter most respect and reverence.