Tomb May Hold Key to Shakespeare

Sarcophagus may hold manuscripts tying Bard to another writer
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 9, 2009 1:27 PM CDT
Tomb May Hold Key to Shakespeare
Circa 1600, Fulke Greville, (1554 - 1628), English poet and courtier.   (Getty Images)

A 17th-century tomb might hold the key to the enduring mystery of William Shakespeare's identity, the Daily Telegraph reports, and researchers are hoping to take a peek inside. A scan found that the ornate sarcophagus, built at an English church by Shakespeare contemporary and fellow scribe Fulke Greville, contains three "boxlike" shapes that could be documents and manuscripts that shed light on the link between the men.

The pair could even be the same person: “They lived in the same street, had the same friends and enemies, and were members of the same literary circles,” the Telegraph notes. Greville also called himself “the Master of Shakespeare.” Now, searchers want to insert a minute camera on a tube into the monument; they say any documents may have survived if they were in lead-lined boxes, typical in that era.
(More William Shakespeare stories.)

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