First of occasional posts on what’s happening generally in the world of history! News today from The Scotsman
that Scientists are now able to read the lost final entry Dr Livingstone’s diary – the famous Scottish explorer ran out of ink after witnessing the massacre of hundreds of slaves in Africa. He improvised using berries and the like, but the words faded until now when Scientists from Edinburgh’s Napier University have been able to read them using spectral imaging.
Here’s some more from The Scotsman article about what the researchers found:
It records Dr Livingstone gazing with “wonder” as three Arab slavers with guns entered the market in Nyangwe, a Congolese village, where 1500 people were gathered, mostly women.
“Fifty yards off, two guns were fired and a general flight took place – shot after shot followed on the terrified fugitives. Great numbers died. It is awful – terrible, a dreadful world this,” he wrote.
However, Dr Adrian Wisnicki, who led the project, said there was evidence in the diary that suggested members of Dr Livingstone’s party might have been involved in the massacre.
Related articles
- Explorers of the Nile: The Triumph and Tragedy of a Great Victorian Adventure by Tim Jeal: review (telegraph.co.uk)
- Newly deciphered diary muddles Livingstone legend (sfgate.com)
- Five Reasons You Should Go to Zanzibar Right Now (gadling.com)
