Activities of this laboratory were directed primarily at further imaging and image processing of the Archimedes
Palimpsest and of a 9th–century Syriac palimpsest owned by the same individual. The original text of the Syriac
manuscript may be a medical textbook. Selected leaves from this manuscript were imaged in February 2009 and plans
have been developed to image the entire manuscript in early 2010 using the same tools and algorithms developed for
the Archimedes palimpsest.
One of the original texts in the Archimedes palimpsest is a partial manuscript (seven leaves) of a commentary on
Aristotle’s “Categories” by Alexander of Aphrodisias. The scholars had found the text on these leaves to be very
difficult to read, even after pseudocolor image processing. Dr. William Noel of the Walters Art Museum challenged the
imaging team to work intensively on these images over the Christmas holidays in 2008 to assist the scholarly
transcription. First-year imaging science undergraduate student Kevin Bloechl took up the challenge, and within one
day, he had demonstrated a method that successfully retrieved much of the lost text. He performed principal component
analysis on RGB images collected under ultraviolet illumination. In other words, he analyzed the spectrum of the
fluorescent light emitted by these leaves. The original undertext appears almost as by magic, which has allowed
scholars to transcribe more than 90% of the text on these pages where formerly only about 10% might have been read.
The laboratory is now currently working with the Preservation, Research, and Technology Directorate of the U.S.
Library of Congress to develop methods for imaging watermarks in paper. Dr. Fenella France of the Library is
collaborating with Dr. Roger Easton and graduate student Francesca Polo in this one-year project that is aimed at
replacing the former method of beta radiography in this application.
An imaging team including Dr. Roger L. Easton, Jr. of the Carlson Center, surveyed palimpsested manuscripts at
St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai in September 2009. The team included Dr. Keith Knox of the Air Force
Research Laboratory in Kihei, HI, Dr. William A. Christens-Barry of Equipoise Imaging in Ellicott City, MD, and Ken
Boydston of Megavision, Inc. in Santa Barbara, CA, Approximately fifty leaves were imaged under the supervision of
Father Justin of the Monastery, David Cooper, Director of Digital Lightforms, Ltd., U.K. and former Librarian of
Corpus Christi College at Oxford University. The project was managed by Michael Phelps, Executive Director of the
Early Manuscript Electronic Library in Rolling Hills Estates, CA and Michael Toth of R.B. Toth Associates of Oakton,
VA. The team will present their results to the Monastery and then propose a long-term project to image the collection
of palimpsests.
Additional inquiries have been received from Dr. Adrian Wisnicki, Honorary Research Fellow of the School
of English and Humanities at Birkbeck College of the University of London, who is trying to read the
African diaries of David Livingstone, now kept at the David Livinstone Museum in Blantyre Scotland, and
from Dr. Gregory Heyworth of the University of Mississippi, who is trying to read lacunae of a manuscript
that was damaged during the bombing firestorm in Dresden. The laboratory is actively seeking funding for
these activities in collaboration with these scholars.
Dr. Easton consulted with the staff of the National Library of Medicine at the Solid-Dose Pharmaceutical Imaging
Specification Meeting and to the Yad Hanadiv Foundation of Jerusalem. The laboratory presented at the ImagineRIT
festival on 2 May 2009. Dr. Easton presented an invited talks to the Rochester Society of the Archeological Institute of
America, to the Rochester Section of the Optical Society of America, and to the Friends of the Linda Hall Library in
Kansas City on 12 November 2009.