The ball was found behind panelling in the Queen’s Chamber at Stirling Castle in Scotland | LEFT: Wikimedia Commons; RIGHT: [email protected]
A leather football that dates to around 1540 has spent centuries behind the walls of Stirling Castle and was discovered during renovation work in the late 1970s. The ball itself is dated to between 1540 and 1570, according to the Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum , which now holds it. University of Glasgow specialists Conor Fraser and Ben Morris captured the ball before it travelled to Miami for the Scotland-Brazil match on June 24. Guinness World Records lists it as the oldest football and dates its manufacture to the 1540–1570 period. The ball was scheduled to appear at the Coral Gables Museum in Florida from June 20 to 24 before being taken to the Scotland-Brazil World Cup match in Miami, and the University of Glasgow said it was the first time that the football had travelled to the United States.
The university said the digital version will allow people to examine details such as its stitching and worn leather surface. The ball was recognised by Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest football, and was found behind panelling in the Queen’s Chamber at Stirling Castle in Scotland. The chamber had been decorated in the 1540s, when Mary, Queen of Scots, was a child at the castle. The ball stopped at the University of Glasgow, where specialists began scanning it to produce a museum-quality digital twin, before travelling to the United States for the FIFA World Cup. The digital project uses a process called photogrammetry that combines photographs that are taken from different angles to build a detailed three-dimensional representation. From castle rafters to a World Cup The football was eventually placed in the collection of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery & Museum, where it became one of the institution’s best-known objects.
