New Light on Old Manuscripts: The Sinai Palimpsests and Other Advances in Palimpsest Studies

New Light on Old Manuscripts: The Sinai Palimpsests and Other Advances in Palimpsest Studies

Claudia RAPP - Giulia ROSSETTO - Jana GRUSKOVÁ - Grigory KESSEL (Eds.) 

doi:10.1553/978OEAW91575


Published Online:  2023/10/19 09:54:05
Object Identifier:  0xc1aa5576 0x003e8a12
Rights:All rights reserved.For questions regarding copyright and copies please contact us by email.

The study of palimpsest manuscripts has a long tradition and has led to spectacular discoveries of new texts or new text versions. Recent decades have seen the development of advanced nondestructive methods of multispectral imaging and computer-based image processing. The focus of such research have been individual manuscripts, such as the Archimedes palimpsest that was studied in Baltimore, or the Dexippus fragments in Vienna. The Sinai Palimpsests Project broke new ground by studying for the first time a collection of palimpsest manuscripts that have been preserved for centuries in the library of the Monastery of Saint Catherine in the Sinai (Egypt). The erased layers preserve texts in eleven languages of the Christian Orient. An international team of scholars has identified numerous new texts or versions of texts, often in very early scripts. This volume has its origin in a conference that was held in Vienna in 2018, where these results of the Sinai Palimpsests Project were presented, along with the advances in image capture and image processing that have made them possible. Additional contributions about current projects in the study of palimpsests, also including Jewish and Muslim text traditions, place the study of palimpsest manuscripts within the larger context of the cultural history of the middle ages. The 30 contributions in this volume thus offer a cross-section, including the most recent technologies, of the current state of research in palimpsest studies.

ISBN 978-3-7001-9157-5
Print Edition
ISBN 978-3-7001-9159-9
Online Edition
doi:10.1553/978OEAW91575
Veröffentlichungen zur Byzanzforschung 45 
Denkschriften der phil.-hist. Klasse  547 
2023,  524 Seiten mit 32 Farbabb., 29,7×21cm, broschiert