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. 342/41 – c. 290 BC) were discovered in a palimpsest in the Vatican library. The verses by Menander are the oldest layer of writing in a double palimpsest, i.e., a palimpsest with two layers of erased text. The palimpsest is one of several in the Vatican Library that were previously part of the library of St. Catherine’s Monastery.
In 2014, EMEL collaborated with the Lazarus Project and the Vatican Library to use spectral imaging to recover the verses by Menander. A full publication is in preparation.
