Archimedes in Bits
Ten Years of Work on the Archimedes Palimpsest
Speakers
The Archimedes Palimpsest is a manuscript of extraordinary importance to the history of science. This thirteenth century prayer book contains erased texts that were written several centuries earlier still. These erased texts include two treatises by Archimedes that can be found nowhere else, The Method and Stomachion. The manuscript sold at auction to a private collector on the 29th October 1998. The owner deposited the manuscript at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, a few months later. Since that date the manuscript has been the subject of conservation, imaging and scholarship, in order to better read the texts. The Archimedes Palimpsest project, as it is called, has shed new light on Archimedes and revealed new texts from the ancient world. It has also generated a great deal of public curiosity, as well as the interest of scholars throughout the world. On 29th October 2008, we celebrated the ten year anniversary of the project. What was erased text, in terrible condition, impossible to access, and yet foundational to the history and science of the West, is now legible, and instantly available for free on the Web. This talk will cover the evolution of the project as well as its future directions.
Speaker Bios
William Noel is the Curator of Manuscripts and Rare Books at the Walters Art Museum. But for someone who spends the majority of his time analyzing ancient and medieval artifacts, he also embraces social media and stresses its value even for the oldest, most established academic and cultural institutions. Noel believes passionately that institutions should free their digital data. Since 1999 Noel has spearheaded the conservation of a manuscript known as the Archimedes Palimpsest. The palimpsest is a unique Byzantine prayer book made up of parchments which contain hidden writings from three original previously-unknown texts: treatises written by Archimedes; works by the 4th-century B.C. Attic Orator Hyperides; and 3rd-century commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, by an unknown author. Using a powerful particle accelerator Noel and his team were able to uncover the hidden texts and publish all their images and findings on the Internet, available to anyone for free under a Creative Commons license. Noel currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland, where he curates at the Walters, working to ensure that the public has free digital access to his collection.
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All talks free and open to the public. Attendees are welcome to bring their own lunches.
Contact: MITH (mith.umd.edu, mith@umd.edu, 301.405.8927).