Book of Kells

Most of my travel writings are brief to make it easier for me to give you the gist of everything, but now that I have some time I'll tell you a bit more about the book of Kells! The book of Kells is what's called an illuminated manuscript and this name comes from its extremely decorative text. It was written by Celtic monks around the year 800 making the book of Kells about 1,209 years old, nearly 60 times my age, wrap your mind around that. 

The manuscript contains the four gospels of the new testament all illuminated by very lavish images of animals, people, and celtic knots.I believe there were about 3 or four different artists that worked on the illuminations, one artist solely for adorning the pages with gold. Though this book is considered one of the first "treasures" of Ireland, it actually was never really finished, and no one knows the exact place the book was produced (though it derives its name from the monastery it was found which was in Kells).

 It is also a mystery how this book survived through the mediaeval period because the Kells abbey (where it was found) was often pillaged by vikings(but the book may not have been present for these raiding). I also  find it very interesting that since it was all written by hand, there are many mistakes trhoughout the book. But the mistakes were no big concern to the monks because this book was created more for appearance than function, in fact even when it was used for mass the speakers would not usually be reading from it, instead reciting from memory.

To give you an idea of what it look like here are some pictures I pulled off the net