38:
461:
472:
480:
447:
palimpsests are found in the codices which were remade from the early large folios in the 7th to the 9th centuries. It has been noticed that no entire work is generally found in any instance in the original text of a palimpsest, but that portions of many works have been taken to make up a single
347:
aid scholars in deciphering unreadable palimpsests. Superexposed photographs exposed in various light spectra, a technique called "multispectral filming", can increase the contrast of faded ink on parchment that is too indistinct to be read by eye in normal light. For example,
1180:
416:, except for imperfect or injured volumes. Such a decree put added pressure on retrieving the vellum on which secular manuscripts were written. The decline of the vellum trade with the introduction of paper exacerbated the scarcity, increasing pressure to reuse material.
259:
after the 6th century. Where papyrus was in common use, reuse of writing media was less common because papyrus was cheaper and more expendable than costly parchment. Some papyrus palimpsests do survive, and Romans referred to this custom of washing papyrus.
370:
where the palimpsest is now conserved, the project has focused on experimental techniques to retrieve the remaining text, some of which was obscured by overpainted icons. One of the most successful techniques for reading through the paint proved to be
1176:
323:
Faint legible remains were read by eye before 20th-century techniques helped make lost texts readable. To read palimpsests, scholars of the 19th century used chemical means that were sometimes very destructive, using
403:
A number of ancient works have survived only as palimpsests. Vellum manuscripts were over-written on purpose mostly due to the dearth or cost of the material. In the case of Greek manuscripts, the consumption of old
419:
Texts most susceptible to being overwritten included obsolete legal and liturgical ones, sometimes of intense interest to the historian. Early Latin translations of
Scripture were rendered obsolete by Jerome's
1005:, "though he began a tragedy with great zest, becoming dissatisfied with the style, he obliterated the whole; and his friends saying to him, What is your Ajax doing? He answered, My Ajax met with a sponge." (
533:
of the parchment assigns a date somewhere before 671 with a probability of 99%. Given that sūra 9, one of the last revealed chapters, is present and assuming the likely possibility that the undertext (the
378:
imaging, through which the iron in the ink is revealed. A team of imaging scientists and scholars from the United States and Europe is currently using spectral imaging techniques developed for imaging the
150:
428:
texts were dangerous to harbor—there were compelling political and religious reasons to destroy texts viewed as heresy, and to reuse the media was less wasteful than simply to burn the books.
215:
that describes the process: "The original writing was scraped and washed off, the surface resmoothed, and the new literary material written on the salvaged material." The
Ancient Greeks used
311:), then stacked together like a newspaper and sewn together at the fold. Prepared parchment sheets retained their original central fold, so each was ordinarily cut in half, making a
1266:
121:
skin and was expensive and not readily available, so, in the interest of economy, a page was often re-used by scraping off the previous writing. In colloquial usage, the term
424:. Texts might be in foreign languages or written in unfamiliar scripts that had become illegible over time. The codices themselves might be already damaged or incomplete.
452:(see below). On the whole, early medieval scribes were thus not indiscriminate in supplying themselves with material from any old volumes that happened to be at hand.
1332:
604:, of the 9th or 10th century, covers a Latin grammatical treatise in a cursive hand of the 6th century, which in its turn covers the Latin annals of the historian
540:) was written shortly after the preparation of the parchment, it was probably written relatively shortly, 10 to 40 years, after the death of the Islamic prophet
544:. The undertext differs from the standard Qur'anic text and is therefore the most important documentary evidence for the existence of variant Qur'anic readings.
178:
1359:
725:, a work of the great Syracusan mathematician copied onto parchment in the 10th century and overwritten by a liturgical text in the 12th century.
271:. With the passing of time, the faint remains of the former writing would reappear enough so that scholars can discern the text (called the
1021:, 4.5), in which the former, dissatisfied with a piece of his own writing, facetiously exclaims that he will "consecrate it to water (
1235:
804:
The
Jerusalem Palimpsest of Euripides contains fragments of the text of Euripides. Among these fragments, six plays are included:
285:, irretrievably losing the writing; hence the most valuable palimpsests are those that were overwritten in the early Middle Ages.
1038:
The most accessible overviews of the transmission of texts through the cultural bottleneck are
Leighton D. Reynolds (editor), in
408:
for the sake of the material was so great that a synodal decree of the year 691 forbade the destruction of manuscripts of the
1133:
1091:
1160:
37:
1327:
515:
1291:
1301:
1210:
353:
518:, Paris: portions of the Old and New Testaments in Greek, attributed to the 5th century, are covered with works of
436:
573:
of the beginning of the 9th century, is written on palimpsest leaves taken from 6th-century manuscripts of the
384:
113:, from which the text has been scraped or washed off in preparation for reuse in the form of another document.
1389:
954:
556:
31:
17:
223:, and to erase the writing by smoothing the wax surface and writing again. This practice was adopted by
764:
619:, where potentially hundreds of texts have left their traces on the wooden back wall of a wax tablet.
510:
495:
196:
137:
to denote an object made or worked upon for one purpose and later reused for another; for example, a
42:
965:
357:
315:
volume of the original folio, with the overwritten text running perpendicular to the effaced text.
494:
The best-known palimpsest in the legal world was discovered in 1816 by
Niebuhr and Savigny in the
1014:
440:
811:
About sixty palimpsest manuscripts of the Greek New
Testament have survived to the present day.
171:
1384:
794:
790:
775:
487:
190:
902:
721:
362:
349:
1350:
1379:
1374:
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822:
713:
585:
526:
1346:
a project for the census, description, study and digital reproduction of Greek palimpsests
1046:
in palimpsest may be enumerated, and in his general introduction to textual transmission,
8:
729:
499:
460:
1177:"In the Sinai, a global team is revolutionizing the preservation of ancient manuscripts"
1070:
471:
1258:
818:
786:
673:
661:
647:
605:
570:
367:
333:
255:, most palimpsests known to modern scholars are parchment, which rose in popularity in
205:
106:
1297:
1262:
1216:
1206:
1156:
1129:
1087:
771:
736:
519:
498:. Underneath letters by St. Jerome and Gennadius was the almost complete text of the
154:
755:– Greek palimpsest fragments of the gospel of Saint Luke, obtained in the island of
563:, of the 9th/10th century, covers a Latin grammatical treatise from the 6th century.
1343:
1250:
752:
709:
686:
566:
464:
425:
138:
60:
1150:
1123:
1010:
936:
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740:
702:
655:
626:, in rustic capitals, of the 4th or 5th century, re-written with portions of the
601:
597:
388:
50:
1360:
Exploring
Armenian Palimpsests with Multispectral and Transmissive Light Imaging
1293:
The
Jerusalem Palimpsest of Euripides : A Facsimile Edition with Commentary
484:
1333:
Brief note on economic and cultural considerations in production of palimpsests
1048:
Scribes and
Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature
932:
760:
698:
668:, the sole surviving fragment, overwritten by a late-6th-century Old Testament.
616:
580:
552:
548:
479:
256:
166:
1328:
OPIB Virtual
Renaissance Network activities in digitizing European palimpsests
149:
1368:
1220:
638:
530:
413:
299:
212:
134:
1254:
1152:
The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration
375:
344:
224:
126:
439:, but palimpsests were also created as new texts were required during the
922:
918:
914:
910:
906:
898:
894:
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recovered much of the undertext (estimated to be more than 80%) from the
337:
278:
130:
45:, a Greek manuscript of the Bible from the 5th century, is a palimpsest.
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of the early centuries took place in the period which followed the
325:
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623:
421:
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the surface of the vellum was usually scraped away with powdered
252:
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691:
651:
643:
633:
432:
312:
282:
264:
228:
220:
806:
Hecuba, Phoenissae, Orestes, Andromacha, Hippolytus and Medea.
732:, the oldest Syriac copy of the gospels, from the 4th century.
756:
678:
627:
575:
444:
405:
392:
383:
to study more than one hundred palimpsests in the library of
372:
303:
289:
248:
1352:
El palimpsesto grecolatino como fenómeno librario y textual
977:
781:
The Codex Guelferbytanus 64 Weissenburgensis, with text of
329:
184:
118:
110:
87:
1029:)," i.e. that he will rub out or burn what he has written.
646:, of the 4th century, the sole surviving copy, covered by
75:
69:
735:
The unique copy of a Greek grammatical text composed by
529:
is one of the oldest Qur'anic manuscripts in existence.
227:, who wrote on wax-coated tablets, which were reusable;
1233:
292:
are constructed in "gathers" which are folded (compare
1040:
Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics
141:
the reverse blank side of which has been re-engraved.
505:, probably the first students' textbook on Roman law.
90:
84:
277:, the 'underwriting') and decipher it. In the later
247:
prepared from animal hides is far more durable than
93:
81:
72:
66:
789:, partly palimpsest, with texts of earlier codices
176:
78:
63:
1086:. California: J. Paul Getty Museum. p. 215.
1366:
1234:Sadeghi, Behnam; Goudarzi, Mohsen (March 2012).
1179:. Washington POST Magazine. September 8, 2012.
1042:, where the texts that survived, fortuitously,
547:Among the Syriac manuscripts obtained from the
475:Codex Nitriensis, with Syriac text (upper text)
1200:
467:, with Greek text of Luke 9:22–33 (lower text)
336:. Modern methods of reading palimpsests using
1148:
1109:Palimpsests - the backs of monumental brasses
1106:
1149:Metzger, B. M.; Ehrman, B. D., eds. (2005).
1121:
744:
559:with Syriac translation of St. Chrysostom's
1201:Gordon, W.M.; Robinson, O.F., eds. (1988).
535:
306:
272:
1009:, 85). Cf. a letter of the future emperor
801:, and several other texts Greek and Latin.
589:of the 7th or 8th century, British Museum.
1128:. Brill (Leiden). p. 1527 (col. 3).
340:light and photography are less damaging.
263:The writing was washed from parchment or
27:Reused manuscript with visible prior text
1236:"Ṣan'ā' 1 and the Origins of the Qur'ān"
1227:
763:, deciphered, transcribed and edited by
478:
470:
459:
148:
36:
1155:. Oxford University Press. p. 20.
778:, also deciphered by Tregelles in 1853.
14:
1367:
1296:. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Co.
1169:
774:(Codex Z) of St. Matthew's Gospel, at
630:in the 9th century, Ambrosian Library.
318:
157:palimpsest from the 5th or 6th century
1338:PBS NOVA: "The Archimedes Palimpsest"
1125:The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek
1122:Goh, M.; Schroeder, C., eds. (2018).
1081:
743:in the 2nd century, preserved in the
608:, of the 5th century, British Museum.
583:, both of the 6th century, and the
24:
746:Österreichische Nationalbibliothek
455:
25:
1401:
1321:
712:, overwritten by the Acts of the
555:, London: important Greek texts,
354:Rochester Institute of Technology
352:undertaken by researchers at the
1340:Click on "What is a Palimpsest?"
666:On the Maintenance of Friendship
569:, a volume containing a work of
516:Bibliothèque Nationale de France
437:fall of the Western Roman Empire
59:
1283:
1272:from the original on 2021-10-24
1183:from the original on 2021-05-13
1194:
1142:
1115:
1100:
1075:
1064:
1032:
991:
522:in a hand of the 12th century.
431:Vast destruction of the broad
238:
13:
1:
1057:
1107:Page-Phillips, John (1980).
681:, of the 5th or 6th century.
448:volume. An exception is the
185:
144:
7:
955:Palimpsest (disambiguation)
948:
496:library of Verona cathedral
398:
385:Saint Catherine's Monastery
117:was made of lamb, calf, or
32:Palimpsest (disambiguation)
10:
1406:
1290:Daitz, Stephen G. (1970).
1013:to his friend and teacher
968:– rock art from the
957:for other uses of the word
235:confirms such a practice.
202: 'again' and
177:
29:
596:, in which a text of St.
511:Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus
43:Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus
984:
966:Petroglyphs of Arpa-Uzen
358:Johns Hopkins University
1255:10.1515/islam-2011-0025
1203:The Institutes of Gaius
1084:Books: A Living History
441:Carolingian Renaissance
1289:
1082:Lyons, Martyn (2011).
1072:palimpsest defibitions
928:Lectionaries include:
776:Trinity College Dublin
745:
654:, of the 7th century,
536:
490:
488:Codex Guelferbytanus A
476:
468:
307:
273:
158:
46:
1344:Rinascimento virtuale
845:(double palimpsest),
825:(double palimpsest),
722:Archimedes Palimpsest
705:, of the 5th century.
482:
474:
463:
450:Archimedes Palimpsest
381:Archimedes Palimpsest
363:Archimedes Palimpsest
350:multispectral imaging
175:, which derives from
152:
40:
714:Council of Chalcedon
443:. The most valuable
105:page, either from a
30:For other uses, see
1390:Textual scholarship
1050:(with N.G. Wilson).
730:Sinaitic Palimpsest
319:Modern decipherment
231:'s use of the term
219:to write on with a
211: 'scrape'), a
674:Codex Theodosianus
606:Granius Licinianus
571:Severus of Antioch
520:Ephraem the Syrian
491:
477:
469:
368:Walters Art Museum
334:ammonium bisulfate
217:wax-coated tablets
159:
47:
1135:978-90-04-19318-5
1093:978-1-60606-083-4
976:later covered by
815:codices include:
772:Codex Dublinensis
594:double palimpsest
586:Euclid's Elements
537:scriptio inferior
527:Sana'a palimpsest
274:scriptio inferior
165:derives from
16:(Redirected from
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1162:978-019-516122-9
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995:
795:Guelferbytanus B
791:Guelferbytanus A
753:Codex Zacynthius
748:
739:for the emperor
710:Cornelius Fronto
687:Fasti Consulares
613:hyper-palimpsest
567:Codex Nitriensis
539:
465:Codex Nitriensis
345:digitized images
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139:monumental brass
125:is also used in
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1011:Marcus Aurelius
996:
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951:
799:Codex Carolinus
741:Marcus Aurelius
708:The letters of
656:Vatican Library
611:The only known
598:John Chrysostom
458:
456:Famous examples
401:
389:Sinai Peninsula
321:
298:, 'leaf, page'
267:using milk and
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51:textual studies
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15:
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1322:External links
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823:Vaticanus 2061
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761:Colin Macaulay
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699:Arian fragment
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622:The Ambrosian
620:
617:Novgorod Codex
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581:Gospel of Luke
564:
557:Add. Ms. 17212
553:British Museum
549:Nitrian desert
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414:church fathers
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186:palímpsēstos
172:palimpsestus
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127:architecture
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1380:Palimpsests
1375:Manuscripts
1025:) or fire (
343:Innovative
338:ultraviolet
332:or, later,
279:Middle Ages
239:Development
179:παλίμψηστος
131:archaeology
18:Palimpsests
1369:Categories
1276:2012-03-26
1187:2012-09-07
1058:References
980:pictorials
961:Pentimento
827:Uncial 064
551:in Egypt,
501:Institutes
410:Scriptures
233:palimpsest
189:(from
163:palimpsest
123:palimpsest
103:manuscript
55:palimpsest
1309:March 13,
1263:164120434
1243:Der Islam
1221:800515546
999:Suetonius
974:Iron Ages
765:Tregelles
749:, Vienna.
694:, of 486.
426:Heretical
366:. At the
288:Medieval
245:parchment
161:The word
145:Etymology
115:Parchment
1267:Archived
1181:Archived
1007:Augustus
1003:Augustus
949:See also
767:in 1861.
737:Herodian
579:and the
561:Homilies
542:Muhammad
503:of Gaius
399:Recovery
326:tincture
269:oat bran
243:Because
155:Georgian
1027:Volcano
1023:lymphis
787:Isidore
783:Origins
703:Vatican
701:of the
650:on the
644:uncials
624:Plautus
433:quartos
422:Vulgate
412:or the
406:codices
387:in the
290:codices
253:papyrus
200:(pálin)
101:) is a
1300:
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1219:
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1015:Fronto
970:Bronze
813:Uncial
692:Verona
662:Seneca
652:Psalms
634:Cicero
615:: the
602:Syriac
313:quarto
308:folium
283:pumice
265:vellum
229:Cicero
221:stylus
209:(psáō)
107:scroll
1270:(PDF)
1259:S2CID
1239:(PDF)
985:Notes
757:Zante
679:Turin
628:Bible
600:, in
576:Iliad
445:Latin
393:Egypt
373:X-ray
304:Latin
295:folio
249:paper
197:πάλιν
193:
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167:Latin
109:or a
1311:2024
1298:ISBN
1217:OCLC
1207:ISBN
1157:ISBN
1130:ISBN
1088:ISBN
1044:only
978:Saka
972:and
944:.cvd
941:1637
923:0209
919:0208
915:0135
911:0133
907:0132
903:0130
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895:0116
891:0104
887:0103
770:The
728:The
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697:The
684:The
671:The
525:The
508:The
483:The
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1251:doi
883:098
879:097
875:096
871:094
867:093
863:088
859:086
855:079
851:078
847:072
843:068
839:067
835:066
831:065
785:of
690:of
677:of
642:in
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302:of
251:or
206:ψάω
119:kid
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