Researchers Use Multispectral Imaging to Recover 42 Pages of Erased Sixth-Century Pauline Manuscript

Researchers have recovered 42 long-lost pages from Codex H, a sixth-century manuscript containing a copy of the Letters of St. Paul, using advanced imaging technology to reveal text invisible to the naked eye. The University of Glasgow announced the discovery in an April 24 press release.

The international team was led by University of Glasgow professor Garrick Allen and worked in partnership with the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library. Codex H, formally known as GA 015, is a palimpsest whose parchment was reused and rewritten over the centuries. The manuscript had been re-inked at some point in its working life.

The chemicals in the new ink caused offset damage to facing pages, creating a mirror image of the original text on opposing leaves. The offset damage sometimes left traces several pages deep that are barely visible to the naked eye. Researchers used multispectral imaging to process images of the surviving pages and recover ghost text.

The recovered ghost text no longer physically exists on the pages. The manuscript was dismantled in the 13th century by monks at the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos. The dismantled parchment was reused as binding material for other books.

The surviving fragments are now scattered across libraries in Italy, Greece, Russia, Ukraine and France. The fragments reveal how sixth-century scribes corrected, annotated and interacted with sacred texts. They also show how books were repurposed once they fell into disrepair.

Codex H is an important witness to the text of Paul’s Letters in a period where we don’t have that many manuscripts, Garrick Allen said, referring to the sixth through ninth centuries. The manuscript contains more than 70 textual corrections by a scribe who cross-referenced it against another manuscript.