The Essence of the Gospel was a lead book scribed in an undecipherable script

Evidence

As for the book of which good tidings are hoped, in accordance with the statement to be found in the Book of the Gifts of Reward by Saint Mary— peace be upon her!—which will be dealt with, God willing, at the end of my present book, where she said: “The people will adhere to one religion only,” this is the writing entitled The Essence13 of the Gospel, consisting of seven leaves of lead, and written in a kind of letters which are unknown in our time. All the kinds of alphabet circulating nowadays among the inhabitants of the world were brought to the archbishop, but the letters used in the book differed from all of these. The translators used to call it the Dumb Book, as nobody had been able to decipher it. At the beginning there was the seal of Solomon—peace be upon him—with an Arabic legend. But apart from the seal the text was written in a script which will not be read until the end of time in the island of al-S.b.r. in the Small Sea, east of Venice. — L. P. Harvey, Muslims in Spain, 1500 to 1614, 1302

Categorization

• SEED: An undecipherable lead book set apart until ‘the end of time’ could anchor a mystery narrative — the archbishop’s cryptic refusal to let al-Hajari try reads like a plot hook.