Academics to investigate unopened letters from 'lost mailbag' from 17th century

A haul of undelivered letters from the 17th-century recently discovered in the Netherlands will be analysed by an international team of academics. 600 unopened letters found in a postmaster's trunk were discovered in The Hague's Museum voor Communicatie in 2012, along with 2,000 opened but undelivered letters. They date from between 1689 and 1707, just after William of Orange's invasion of England, Scotland, and Ireland, known as the 'Glorious Revolution'. The letters will now be analysed by academics from the Universities of Oxford, Leiden, and Groningen, Yale, and MIT in a new project called 'Signed, Sealed, & Undelivered'. X-ray technology from the field of dentistry will be used to read the closed letters without breaking their seals, in order to preserve unique material evidence. Dr Daniel Starza Smith, a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Oxford University, said the letters could shed important light on cultural life in 17th-century Europe: 'Something about these letters frozen in transit makes you feel like you've caught a moment in history off guard,' he said. 'Many of the writers and intended recipients of these letters were people who travelled throughout Europe, such as wandering musicians and religious exiles.