Tresco Library

The Tresco Libary is the most important collection of Old Albic texts currently known. It was found on Tresco (one of the Isles of Scilly) and consists of 32 linen books. The codices are now kept at the library of Glastonbury University.

Discovery

In 1917, construction workers found two lead crates in an old basement vault on Tresco. The crates were transferred to the Royal Cornwall Museum at Truro, where they remained unopened until 1922. When the crates were opened, they revealed 32 linen codices written in Old Albic, and linguists at Glastonbury University were contacted in order to edit and translate the findings. The texts were published in 1925.

Contents

The Tresco Library texts make up about half the known corpus of Old Albic texts. They contain, among others, a grammar of Old Albic, a collection of folk tales and songs, the Brazen Law, a treatise on music and the so-called Gospel of Joseph of Arimathea.