What
if ancient religious manuscripts once thought to be lost weren’t lost at all? Professor
Todd Hanneken, Ph.D., is the first scholar to combine two existing imaging
technologies in order to “see” handwritten text that has been indecipherable to
the naked eye for hundreds of years. Until the invention of paper, it was a common practice
to erase the text of a manuscript to make room for new writing. The result is
known as a “palimpsest,” with only ghostlike traces of the original ink
remaining. Palimpsests are valuable for studying the early development of
religions and cultures because they tell the story of how some beliefs fell
from dominance, and how others came to be favored.
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