Vatopedi Palimpsests 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, is a highly detailed map of the then known world – reputedly studied by Christopher Columbus. “Multispectral imaging recovered more information than we dared to hope for,” says Chet Van…

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…

2022-2024, Fondazione Biblioteca Capitolare di Verona ETS, Italy. Coming Soon!

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…

2013 – 2014, Funded by National Endowment for the Humanities. This project integrated two proven technologies for imaging cultural artifacts: • Spectral imaging, which collects detailed color data in order to recover information which is indistinguishable to the naked eye, such as unreadable text on a manuscript or stages of revision in a painting.• Reflectance…

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 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…