A 17th century map was found in a chimney in Scotland and then delivered to the National Library of Scotland crumpled inside a plastic bag and basically destroyed. Just unraveling the fragile, centuries-old map seemed impossible enough, but the team at the National Library managed to figure out a way to salvage and restore it.


The transformation is really impressive, they took what was basically garbage and managed to piece together all the little bits of fabric and paper and essentially save history. Trina Mckendrick filmed the restoration process, you can see the before and after below:

And here’s more background on the map: