The Archimedes Palimpsest. by Reviel Netz, William Noel, Natalie Tchernetska, and Nigel Wilson (eds.). (review)

This magnificent book contains, in volume 1, Noel’s Introduction (1–15); “Part 1: The Manuscripts” (17–77), a detailed codicological description of the components; “Part 2: History” (79–127), three contributions reconstructing the eventful history of the book from 1229; “Part 3: Conservation” (128–171); “Part 4: The Digital Palimpsest” (173–239), two contributions on imaging (optical and X-Ray, plus image-processing techniques), and one on digital records, especially 238 open standards; and “Part 5: The Texts” (241–320), on palimpsests in scholarship (Tchernetska and Wilson) and on the place of this palimpsest in Archimedes scholarship (Netz). Volume 2 provides facing-page high-quality images and diplomatic transcriptions, for Archimedes (12–287), Hyperides (290–309), and the Aristotle commentary (312–39). The images may be seen at http://books.google.com/books?id=_zX8OG3QoF4C.

The history of the volume, a tale of a manuscript lost and found, renders tales about Deuteronomy (2 Kings 22.8–23.3) and Aristotle (Strabo 13.1.54) less fabulous. A prayer-book was overwritten on seven palimpsested parchments: (i) ca 900 A.D. copy of an anonymous commentary on Aristotle’s Categories, (ii) tenth c. copy of Archimedes, (iii) eleventh c. copy of Hyperides, (iv-v) two eleventh c. ecclesiastical texts, and (vi-viii) two smaller pieces of mostly illegible and unidentified texts. It was written or purchased at Jerusalem in 1229 (snatched in that year by the crusader kingdom of Acre from the divided Ayyubids), and not long before 1844, transferred to Constantinople. The holding library’s catalogue was published in 1899, alerting Heiberg, who viewed, photographed, transcribed, and edited the Archimedes folii in 1906–15. In the 1930s, the French owner had forgeries of Byzantine miniatures painted onto four folii; it was sold in 1942, allowing its owner to escape Paris. From 1970 the French owners attempted to sell the book, and did so in 1998.

The meticulous conservation by Quandt is a tour de force, combining physics, chemistry, microbiology, and artistry. I wonder if isotope and/or trace-element analysis of the parchment itself might help deduce the places where the earlier texts were written. The text was deciphered via “multi-spectral” imaging, meaning from infrared to ultraviolet, augmented by X-ray fluorescence. Of the various images, from volume 2, it would appear that the “most useful” (vii) were ultraviolet fluorescence and red reflectance, and, for some folii, the iron “color” of X-rays (40–42, 60–62, 72, 252–54, see vol. 1, 217–19), or else a transform of the ultraviolet (312–14, 318–20, 328–38: most of the Aristotle commentary; on the technique, see vol. 1, 177–80). The damage done after Heiberg’s time was so great that in every case where his photograph survives, that is apparently the most useful image (86–92; 110–112; and 284–286, the entire surviving portion of the Stomachion).

The palimpsest is important for Archimedes, especially his Method, where we now know he used actual infinities, and his Stomachion, where we now know he explored combinatorics; it is also important for Hyperides (only two fragments in manuscript, increasing his extant corpus by twenty percent: vol. 1, 253) and the Aristotle-commentary tradition (Tchernetska and Wilson are too quick to favor Porphyry over the notoriously verbose Galen as the author of this expansive work; 255–56).

The physical book, backed by the open-source digital data, is a powerful example of how modern technology can augment, rather than replace, the codex. The thirteen-year project was amply funded, much as Hiero sponsored Archimedes: a support system is required for such work to prosper.