Manuscript fetches $227,700

Press, 1 July 1985, Page 32

Manuscript fetches $227,700

NZPA-Reuter London I A manuscript believed to ! be the earliest known piece of English writing of any . kind has been sold at , auction for £82,500 ($227,700). ) Dr Christopher de Hamel, , an expert for the auction- ; eer, Sotheby’s, said the two leaves of seventh century handwriting on vellum, thought to have been copied by an Irish monk, were 200

years older than the famous Book of Kells, now at Dublin’s Trinity College. The manuscript, a Latin translation of the “Ecclesiastical History,” by Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, had lain for almost 50 years in the Folger Shakespeare Library . in Washington, D.C., befdre a staff member recently realised its importance. The buyer of the manuscript was not identified.

satellite Intelsat, the world’s first multi-national communications satellite conglomerate, celebrated its twentieth anniversary at the week-end — one day late — when its thirty-eighth orbiter was launched. The satellite, owned by the International Telecommunications Satellite Corporation can handle 15,000 telephone calls plus two television programmes at once. It will be positioned over the Atlantic at the Equator to serve as a back-up for an identical satellite launched in March.—Cape Canaveral.