A 17th-century book owned by Harvard Law School, thought to have been bound in human skin because of an inscription that referred to a man "flayed alive," has been shown through scientific testing to have been bound in sheepskin.
The binding material of the Spanish law book published in 1605-06 was determined after an analysis of nine samples of its front and back covers, binding and glue, Karen Beck, a rare books curator at Harvard Law School Library, said Friday.
The Harvard conservation scientist who conducted the testing used a technique for identifying proteins called peptide mass fingerprinting to differentiate the samples from other parchment sources such as cattle, deer, goat and human skin, Beck wrote in a post on the Harvard Law School Library blog. The glue was found to consist of cattle and pig collagen.