Fascinating revelations of the palimpsests

It is a fact that since antiquity papyri and more often parchment documents were reused. The process was rather simple: the original writing was erased or “obscured” and the new text was written over and across the old one, i.e., horizontally over the vertical obliterated initial lines. This practice was commonly applied until the Middle-Ages.

In an earlier blog, I mentioned the 65 Basel papyri among which an original work of the Greek physician Galen was discovered (see: The Greek physician Galen is still making headlines). Another palimpsest that constitutes the most complete surviving copy of an original book by Galen was found at the St Catherine Monastery on the Sinai Peninsula. It was written in Syriac and dated from the 6^th century but was hidden underneath a text from the 11^th century (see: Hello? Dr Galen?)

Yet, the St Catherine Monastery has many more treasures and this time we are talking about 74 palimpsests containing unknown classical Greek mythological and medical works.

It sounds almost like magic to discover ancient classical texts through a translation in Syriac, religious writings in languages that have disappeared, or even detailed illustrations of plants, monuments, and people. All in all, the Sinai palimpsests count nearly seven thousand pages, penned down in ten different languages hidden under writings from the 5^th to the 12^th century! The collection reveals manuscripts in Ethiopic and Latin, which is not surprising given the central role played by St Catherine’s Monastery in the Christian world up to the Middle Ages.

Example: (Overtext) Gospels in Arabic translation, late 8th century. 

The oldest surviving copy of the Gospels in Arabic translation. 

Scanned: (Undertext revealed through spectral imaging) Hippocrates, 

De morbis popularibus (Epidemiae), 6th century. 

The oldest surviving copy of this ancient scientific text.

Among these documents, the earliest surviving copies of different Hippocratic medical treatises have been discovered, as well as a hitherto unknown poem from ancient Greece mentioning Zeus, Hades, Hera, Hermes, and Persephone.

Obviously, we need the modern technology of spectral imaging process to illuminate the manuscript with different wavelengths, ranging from ultraviolet to infrared. Under the right circumstances, a new image appears that is readable from underneath the scanned content.

It must be terribly exciting to work on such a project and discover new texts or older versions of ancient documents that have reached us. Imagine lying hands on antique illustrations of medicinal herbs, or see human faces and figures re-appear through the mist of time! Nothing short of a miracle, indeed.

[Both pictures are from the UCLA Library News]