Walters researchers decode the secrets of the Archimedes Palimpsest

"Twelve years ago, Walters Art Museum curator Will Noel opened a parcel and discovered what he calls "Archimedes' brain in a box." Thus began a search for buried treasure — in this case, the lost writings of Archimedes of Syracuse, a famed Greek mathematician and inventor who lived in the third century B.C. Noel and his boss, museum director Gary Vikan, found a 174-page book made of cured goatskin that was ugly beyond belief. The sheaves were singed around the edges, the text and pages were defaced by water stains, and mold had eaten away entire sections. Noel began to gently riffle through the pages but stopped when they fell apart in his hands. "It looked as though it had been in a fire, or something had chewed it up," Vikan says. "It made me think of shredded wheat." Even worse, the manuscript had been washed and scraped away by a medieval monk and written over with prayers (making it a "palimpsest," a document in which the original text has been imperfectly erased and written over.) Only ghostly traces of the original remained.Twelve years ago, Walters Art Museum curator Will Noel opened a parcel and discovered what he calls "Archimedes' brain in a box." Thus began a search for buried treasure — in this case, the lost writings of Archimedes of Syracuse, a famed Greek mathematician and inventor who lived in the third century B.C. Noel and his boss, museum director Gary Vikan, found a 174-page book made of cured goatskin that was ugly beyond belief. The sheaves were singed around the edges, the text and pages were defaced by water stains, and mold had eaten away entire sections. Noel began to gently riffle through the pages but stopped when they fell apart in his hands. "It looked as though it had been in a fire, or something had chewed it up," Vikan says. "It made me think of shredded wheat." Even worse, the manuscript had been washed and scraped away by a medieval monk and written over with prayers (making it a "palimpsest," a document in which the original text has been imperfectly erased and written over.) Only ghostly traces of the original remained." More here.