Our Stories &
Projects
In all of its projects EMEL works to…
Enhance the capabilities
of the library or museum, which holds the originals.
Facilitate scholarly access
Educate the public
about the sources for our common heritage and the efforts made to preserve and record them.

Sinai Library Digitization Project
2018–present, 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…

Vatopedi Palimpsests Project
2024–present, Vatopedi Monastery, Mt. Athos, Greece. Coming Soon!

Palimpsests in Danger Project
2022-2024, Fondazione Biblioteca Capitolare di Verona ETS, Italy. Coming Soon!

The Story of Codex H (GA 015)
2023–2024, Great Lavra Monastery – Mt. Athos Greece, Torino – Italy, Paris – France, University of Glasgow – Scotland UK. Coming Soon!

Paris Palimpsests Project
2023, BnF, Paris France. Coming Soon! Our goals:

Sinai Palimpsests Project
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…

Vienna Palimpsests Projects
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…

Codex Zacynthius Spectral Imaging Project
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…

Codex Climaci Rescriptus Spectral Imaging Project
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…

Jubilees Palimpsest Spectral Imaging Project
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…

Scythica Vindobonensia Spectral Imaging Project
2016, Austrian National Library. Funded by the Austrian Science Foundation. Continuing from initial imaging in 2013, this project applied advances in spectral imaging to Scythica Vindobonensia,…

Enoch Palimpsest Spectral Imaging Project
2016, State Library of Berlin. EMEL spectrally imaged a palimpsest that preserves rare early Ethiopic texts, including the oldest surviving copy of the Books of…

Martellus Map Spectral Imaging Project
2015, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Martellus’ map, which dates to about 1491,…

Cairo Geniza Fragments Spectral Imaging Project
2015, Cambridge University Library. Coordinated by Judith Olszowy-Schlanger of the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, in collaboration with Ben Outhwaite of the Taylor-Schechter…

Menander Palimpsest Spectral Imaging Project
2014, The Vatican Library. Funded by the Classics Conclave, Oxford. In 2003, nearly 200 verses of an unknown comedy of Menander, a Greek dramatist (c….

Integrating Spectral and Reflection Transformation Imaging Technologies
2013 – 2014, Funded by National Endowment for the Humanities. This project integrated two proven technologies for imaging cultural artifacts: • Spectral imaging, which collects…

Important Textual Witnesses in Vienna Greek Palimpsests
2013, Austrian National Library. Funded by the Austrian Science Foundation. Five unique Ancient Greek and Byzantine textual witnesses of great importance were imaged from palimpsests…

Restoring David Livingstone’s Nyangwe Diary
2012, David Livingstone Library, Scotland, UK. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The David Livingstone Spectral Imaging Project was a collaborative, international effort…

Next-Generation System for Imaging Fragile Codices
2006 – 2009, Funded by the Seaver Institute. EMEL worked with Stokes Imaging of Austin, Texas, to develop a computer-controlled cradle which supports fragile manuscripts…