Isaac Newton notes almost destroyed by dog sell for £380,000

Scientist’s occult investigations into the Great Pyramid of Egypt, dating from the 1680s, are believed to have been burned when his dog Diamond upset a candle

A collection of unpublished, burnt notes by Isaac Newton, in which the scientist attempts to unlock secret codes he believed were hidden in the measurements of the Great Pyramid of Egypt, have sold at auction for £378,000.

The “exceptionally rare” set of papers, which date to the 1680s, were almost destroyed by Newton’s dog Diamond, who, legend has it, jumped on a table and upset a candle, setting them on fire. Scorched as they are, they reveal Newton’s fascination for alchemy, showing the scientist comparing the external dimensions of the pyramid, the lengths of its tunnels, heights of its chambers and sizes of its bricks, as he attempts to prove they had all been calculated from a common unit of measurement: the royal cubit.

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