THE ARCHIMEDES PALIMPSEST: CONSERVATION TREATMENT, DIGITAL IMAGING AND TRANSCRIPTION OF A RARE MEDIAEVAL MANUSCRIPT

Abstract

The Archimedes Palimpsest, the earliest surviving copy of the treatises of Archimedes, is currently the focus of a major conservation, digital imaging and transcription project based at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. The tenth-century manuscript, which contains the text and diagrams of seven of Archimedes’s theorems, was taken apart in the twelfth century and the parchment sheets were recycled for the making of a Christian prayer book. The manuscript is in extremely poor condition, damaged by fire and water, as well as by mold which has stained and perforated the parchment. Four leaves containing the rarest texts of Archimedes are covered over by forged miniatures that were added sometime after 1929. This paper describes the work that is being done currently to disbind the palimpsest and prepare the bifolia for imaging. The removal of adhesive residues, including animal glue and a poly(vinyl acetate) emulsion, and the stabilization of mold-damaged areas, are discussed. Multi-spectral imaging is being used to capture the barely visible writings of Archimedes, which are then being transcribed by an international team of scholars working from high-resolution images produced in visible and ultraviolet light, and pseudocolor. The combined efforts of the imaging scientists and scholars will eventually result in a facsimile and critical edition of the palimpsest, which is expected to change dramatically our current understanding of Archimedes’s thinking and the way in which his work serves as a foundation for modern science.