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 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 layer of Codex Zacynthius, a palimpsest, preserves a 7th/8th century copy of the Gospel of Luke, which is the oldest Greek New Testament manuscript to contain extracts from writings by early Christian theologians alongside the biblical text.

Recovering these original extracts reveals tantalizing glimpses of lost writings and lost interpretations of the Gospels. A full transcription is being produced, along with an innovative presentation of images of the undertext and overtext, all of which will be openly available online through Cambridge Digital Library.

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