VIDEO: A 700-year-old copy of the Magna Carta is back at Parliament House after being restored

PENELOPE GRIST, DIRECTOR, ART COLLECTIONS APH:  I lead the team that cares for, maintains and develops the Parliament House art collections. 

Within the collection is a 1297 copy of the Magna Carta. 

It’s not only important to this collection but it’s an important piece of global history and the Magna Carta, of course, is celebrated as one of the founding documents of Parliamentary and constitutional government   

MARY MCGILLIVRAY, MEDIEVALIST:  It was created first in 1215, in the reign of King John, who was widely considered to be a bit of a tyrant. 

He endured an uprising from his barons, who essentially forced him to sign this extensive document that outlined the freedoms and liberties that his subjects should enjoy. 

There are only four known copies of the 1297 version. 

The copy of the Magna Carta that is owned by the Australian Government was actually found in a school in Somerset in England in the 1930s. 

They put it up for auction in the ‘50s, and Prime Minister Robert Menzies bought it for the sum of 12 and a half thousand pounds. Today, it's estimated to be worth $35 million. 

ROBERT MENZIES, PRIME MINISTER (1952):  Anybody who reads the Bill of Rights and then compares it with Magna Carta will see how deeply the course of history has been influenced by Magna Carta itself. 

PENELOPE GRIST:  So the 1297 copy of Magna Carta that belongs had been on display for a very long time. There had been 50 years’ worth of improvements in technology and it was felt that now is the time to really bring all of that knowledge and technology to bear on a new investigation. Take it off display, do the work to bring it back on display with the best possible conditions for 2024. 

LIBBY MELZER, PAPER CONSERVATOR GRIMWADE CENTRE:  I started working on the Magna Carta project in 2015, so I've been on it for nearly nine years now.  So it's been quite a journey.

There were, there were several stages that were quite challenging. The riskiest, and I guess most stressful part was the opening of the CSIRO preservation case. 

So as you can imagine, Magna Carta is at that stage, like encased in between glass and lead and silver. So while it's very safe in there, it was a very careful process to cut it out, and we did that by slicing through the lead at the sides of the case. So that was quite a, I guess, a stressful process.

You create mock ups, and you go through anytime you have to move something, or you go through lots of rehearsals. 

So for the one time we moved the Magna Carta, we might have, you know, practiced the moving 10 or 15 times, just so we're sure that, you know, everyone's hands are in the right spot, and everyone knows where to move.

When we actually do the move, or whatever process we're doing, that we've got it very clear in our head what's going to happen, and there's nothing left to chance.

MARY MCGILLIVRAY:  As we know, it’s from the 13th century. It's actually made of parchment, which is animal skin. The ink is iron gall ink, the seal on it is beeswax. These are all organic materials which can degrade really easily, so caring for this object is really difficult and also really important given its historical significance. 

PENELOPE GRIST:  The chords have this beautiful finger loop braiding. The science of creating sheep skin parchment is fascinating. The skill of the scribes who actually wrote, copied out the document, is incredible. 

So I think it's important on so many levels, as an as an artifact, as a document, as a symbolic moment in the development of parliamentary and constitutional government. 

LIBBY MELZER:  I've probably touched the Magna Carta more than anyone else, to be perfectly honest. So one part of the process that was where I spent the most time physically in contact with the Magna Carta was there was a series of patches that had been attached to the back in a repair stage. We're not quite sure when, possibly the 1950s or the 1930s definitely before it came to Australia.

I spent about two weeks with the world's tiniest scalpel, under a microscope, thinning these patches down so they were not so thick and bulky and didn’t cause the parchment to distort. 

When Magna Carta was put into its preservation case by the CSRO back in 1961 they used what's called an anoxic environment. So it was an environment without oxygen, and it was believed at the time that this was the best approach. 

Recent scientific analysis has identified that perhaps the ink in particular would be better off in an environment with oxygen in it. So we've returned it to an oxygen atmosphere. So basically it's got standard air in the case. 

The preservation case controls the humidity at a low and stable level. And we're very closely monitoring the light. So light is a very big factor with fading and other forms of degradation.

MARY MCGILLIVRAY: There's a common misconception that Magna Carta is part of our law in Australia. It's actually not. It's only relevant, really to UK law. 

Despite not being part of Australian law, it also had an influence on the principles that are in our constitution today in Australia. The main one being that everyone is entitled to a fair trial under the law, that no one can be imprisoned without a fair trial.

PENELOPE GRIST:  To have a 13th century copy of that document is an extraordinarily important symbolic presence for visitors to see the depth of that history of development, as well to be an inspiration for future generations.