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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Sam Russell

Magna Carta ‘copy’ bought for $27.50 now believed to be genuine

The 1300 issue Magna Carta owned by Harvard Law School - (Harvard Law School)

A rare original Magna Carta, misidentified and sold “for a fairly derisory price”, has been uncovered 80 years after it was wrongly catalogued.

The remarkable discovery was made by Professor David Carpenter, a medieval history expert at King’s College London. While researching unofficial Magna Carta copies online, the professor stumbled upon a digitised version of the Harvard document and suspected its authenticity.

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