2024–present, Vatopedi Monastery, Mt. Athos, Greece. The “Vatopedi Palimpsests Project” is a pioneering collaboration between the Holy Vatopedi Monastery, the UCLA Library, and the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library (EMEL); with the participation of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. This ambitious initiative aims to systematically study and digitally recover the hidden texts within all palimpsest manuscripts housed…
2022-2024, Fondazione Biblioteca Capitolare di Verona ETS, Italy. The “Palimpsests in Danger Project” tackles a critical challenge in manuscript studies: the severe damage inflicted upon thousands of palimpsests by 19th-century scholars. In their eagerness to recover erased undertexts, these early researchers often applied harsh chemical reagents, which, while sometimes effective in their time, permanently stained…
2023–2024, Great Lavra Monastery – Mt. Athos Greece, Torino – Italy, Paris – France, University of Glasgow – Scotland UK. “The Story of Codex H (GA 015)” unravels the fascinating and complex history of a significant ancient Greek manuscript. Dating back to the sixth century, Codex H is a copy of Paul’s letters in Greek…
2023, BnF, Paris France. The “Paris Palimpsests Project” is a collaborative initiative focused on the in-depth study and digital documentation of significant palimpsested manuscripts held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF). A key objective of this project was the comprehensive imaging and analysis of two primary manuscripts, Grec 2575 and Supplément Grec 257, alongside…
2013-present, Austrian National Library, Vienna, Austria. EMEL is a long-term partner with the Austrian National Library and the Byzantine Research Division of Institute for Medieval Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences. EMEL provides spectral imaging and image processing to recover erased ancient texts on selected palimpsests. Funded by the Austrian Science Foundation. 2019 to present, the…
2018–2022, St. Catherine’s Monastery of the Sinai, Egypt. A collaboration of EMEL, St. Catherine’s Monastery of the Sinai, and the UCLA Library to digitize the Monastery’s unparalleled manuscript library (including the New Finds) and publish the resulting images online with searchable metadata. Donors include the Ahmanson Foundation, Arcadia, the Steinmetz Family Foundation, and the Museum…
2011-2016, St. Catherine’s Monastery of the Sinai, Egypt. A collaboration of EMEL, St. Catherine’s Monastery of the Sinai, and the UCLA Library to recover erased texts from the Monastery’s many palimpsests. The project spectrally imaged 74 palimpsests (6,800 pages), identified 305 erased texts from Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and created world’s largest collection…
2018-2020, Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, United Kingdom. A collaboration of EMEL, Cambridge University Library, and the Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing at Birmingham University. The project is led by Professor David Parker (Principal Investigator) and Dr Hugh Houghton (Co-Investigator) and is funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Council Research Grant. The erased…
2017-2018, Museum of the Bible Scholars Initiative, USA. Spectral imaging of an important palimpsest of Sinai provenance, in collaboration with the Lazarus Project and the Museum of the Bible Scholars Initiative. Funded by the MOTB SI. This palimpsest includes recycled folios from at least ten different Greek and Christian Palestinian Aramaic manuscripts. Multispectral imaging has…
2017-2020, Ambrosiana Library, Milan, Italy. A collaboration of EMEL and St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, to apply spectral imaging and reflection transformation imaging to palimpsests at the Ambrosiana Library in Milan. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Multi-spectral imaging recovered texts that included a 5th century copy of the Book of Jubilees, the…
