Hello, I am Damianos Kasotakis, PhD, GOAM*

Director of Imaging for the Early Manuscripts Elecronic Library

# Researcher / Cultural Heritage Photographer / Large Scale Digitization Expert


My PhD was completed in 2022 investigating the history of manuscript photography at St. Catherine’s Library (Sinai). I am currently in the field of Digital Cultural Heritage, Spectral Imaging, and Digitization.

*Greatest of all Monkeys

Given enough random combinations of keystrokes, a monkey at a typewriter can perform miracles, and thus the greatest of all monkeys was born.

My random keystroke miracles include:
  • Coding scripts to assist in digitization and metadata workflows
  • Building websites using WordPress, Joomla, Typo3 (CMS) platforms
  • Building SQL databases
  • Spending lots of time in EXCEL coding formulas
  • Writing WORD documents including my PhD thesis and other scientific publications
  • Working with Visual Studio and C++ environments
  • Metadata, lots of metadata
  • Experimenting with A.I.
  • Image processing, to recover illegible texts (ENVI, HOKU, Photoshop, ImageJ)

I speak Greek, English and Italian

I have been working for more than a decade in the field of digital humanities (2011-present). I specialize in spectral imaging of erased and rewritten manuscripts (palimpsests), as well as other damaged written materials [Spectral imaging aims to make texts more legible, which would otherwise not be easily visible to the human eye]. I am also active in the field of large-scale digitization of manuscript and book collections. I have worked for the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library (U.S.A. based non-profit organization, 2011-present), MegaVision, Inc. (U.S.A. based manufacturer of specialized photographic equipment, 2021-present), and have collaborated with the UNESCO world heritage Iraq office to digitize endangered archives in Baghdad (2023). I also do freelance work (training, digitization, building databases, and websites and give public lectures. Contact me for more information.

I have trained photographers in spectral imaging both in Europe and the U.S.A. I have worked in digitization projects among others at: St. Catherine’s Monastery of the Sinai (Egypt), libraries of monasteries on Mt. Athos (Greece), libraries in Italy (Milan, Turin, Verona, Vercelli), national libraries of Armenia, Austria, Denmark, France, Georgia, Germany, as well as the British Library, the Cambridge University Library, and private collections and museums in the U.S.A.

Publications
Kasotakis, Damianos, The Sinai Palimpsests Project: A View from the Imaging Room, in: Claudia Rapp, Giulia Rossetto, Jana Grusková and Grigory Kessel (eds.), New Light on Old Manuscripts: The Sinai Palimpsests and Other Advances in Palimp-sest Studies (Vienna, 2023).

Grusková, Jana, Damianos Kasotakis, et all, Insights into the Digital Recovery of the Scythica Vindobonensia, in: B. Mondrain, Ph. Hoffmann und M. Cronier (eds.), Le livre manuscrit grec: écritures, matériaux, histoire. IXe Colloque international de Paléographie grecque à la mémoire de Paul Canart (10–15 septembre 2018, Paris)

Illuminating Techniques from the Sinai Desert: Spectral Imaging Inside one of the Oldest Libraries in the World Brings back to Life Re-written and Forgotten Texts. Review of the Imaging Techniques and the Global Advantages on the Field that were Gained from the Sinai Palimpsests Project (manuscript cultures 15, 2018)
Ph.D.

“The Manuscripts of Saint Catherine’s Monastery (Sinai) through the Photographic Lens: From Glass Plates to Digital Spectral Imaging”, defended in March 2022 and was awarded with 10/10 excellent credit. School of Education, University of Ioannina