Medieval History
In 1999, the Walters Art Museum and a team of researchers began a project to read the erased texts of The Archimedes Palimpsest?the oldest surviving copy of works by the greatest mathematical genius of antiquity. Over 12 years, many techniques were employed by over 80 scientists and scholars in the fields of conservation, imaging and classical studies. The exhibition Lost and Found: The Secrets of Archimedes will tell the story of The Archimedes Palimpsest?s journey and the discovery of new scientific, philosophical and political texts from the ancient world. This medieval manuscript demonstrates that Archimedes discovered the mathematics of infinity, mathematical physics and combinatorics?a branch of mathematics used in modern computing. This exhibition began yesterday at the Walters from and will run until January 1, 2012.
Archimedes lived in the Greek city of Syracuse in the third century B.C. He was a brilliant mathematician, physicist, inventor, engineer and astronomer. In 10th-century Constantinople (present day Istanbul), an anonymous scribe copied the Archimedes treatise in the original Greek onto parchment. In the 13th century, a monk erased the Archimedes text, cut the pages along the center fold, rotated the leaves 90 degrees and folded them in half. The parchment was then recycled, together with the parchment of other books, to create a Greek Orthodox prayer book. This process is called palimpsesting; the result of the process is a palimpsest.
Click here to read this article from History of the Ancient World
- Guest Professor Talks Medieval Connection To Modern Issues
Lisa Lampert-Weissig, author and professor from the University of California, San Diego, held a lecture titled ?Reading the Palimpsest of Race: Medieval Traces in Modern Discourse? in Swan Hall yesterday she discussed the issues highlighted in her latest...
- The Walters Art Museum Receives $265,000 Neh Grant To Digitize Over 100 Flemish Manuscripts
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has granted the Walters Art Museum $265,000 for a three-year project to digitize, catalog and distribute 113 illuminated medieval manuscripts from Flanders, present-day northeastern France and Belgium. This...
- Museum Secrets ? New Television Series To Premiere In January
Museum Secrets is a six-part television series where viewers are invited into the world?s greatest museums to uncover surprising stories and revealing secrets. Premiering on Canada?s History Network on January 6, the Kensington Communications production...
- The Walters Art Museum To Digitize 38 000 Medieval Manuscript Pages
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has granted the Walters Art Museum $315,000 for a two and a half year project to digitize, catalog and distribute 105 illuminated medieval manuscripts. Representing diverse Byzantine, Greek, Armenian, Ethiopian,...
- 1st Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium On Manuscript Studies In The Digital Age
1st Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age October 24-25, 2008 To be held at the Chemical Heritage Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA ***Registration deadline is October 19, 2008***...
Medieval History
Lost and Found: The Secrets of Archimedes opens at the Walters
In 1999, the Walters Art Museum and a team of researchers began a project to read the erased texts of The Archimedes Palimpsest?the oldest surviving copy of works by the greatest mathematical genius of antiquity. Over 12 years, many techniques were employed by over 80 scientists and scholars in the fields of conservation, imaging and classical studies. The exhibition Lost and Found: The Secrets of Archimedes will tell the story of The Archimedes Palimpsest?s journey and the discovery of new scientific, philosophical and political texts from the ancient world. This medieval manuscript demonstrates that Archimedes discovered the mathematics of infinity, mathematical physics and combinatorics?a branch of mathematics used in modern computing. This exhibition began yesterday at the Walters from and will run until January 1, 2012.
Archimedes lived in the Greek city of Syracuse in the third century B.C. He was a brilliant mathematician, physicist, inventor, engineer and astronomer. In 10th-century Constantinople (present day Istanbul), an anonymous scribe copied the Archimedes treatise in the original Greek onto parchment. In the 13th century, a monk erased the Archimedes text, cut the pages along the center fold, rotated the leaves 90 degrees and folded them in half. The parchment was then recycled, together with the parchment of other books, to create a Greek Orthodox prayer book. This process is called palimpsesting; the result of the process is a palimpsest.
Click here to read this article from History of the Ancient World
- Guest Professor Talks Medieval Connection To Modern Issues
Lisa Lampert-Weissig, author and professor from the University of California, San Diego, held a lecture titled ?Reading the Palimpsest of Race: Medieval Traces in Modern Discourse? in Swan Hall yesterday she discussed the issues highlighted in her latest...
- The Walters Art Museum Receives $265,000 Neh Grant To Digitize Over 100 Flemish Manuscripts
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has granted the Walters Art Museum $265,000 for a three-year project to digitize, catalog and distribute 113 illuminated medieval manuscripts from Flanders, present-day northeastern France and Belgium. This...
- Museum Secrets ? New Television Series To Premiere In January
Museum Secrets is a six-part television series where viewers are invited into the world?s greatest museums to uncover surprising stories and revealing secrets. Premiering on Canada?s History Network on January 6, the Kensington Communications production...
- The Walters Art Museum To Digitize 38 000 Medieval Manuscript Pages
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has granted the Walters Art Museum $315,000 for a two and a half year project to digitize, catalog and distribute 105 illuminated medieval manuscripts. Representing diverse Byzantine, Greek, Armenian, Ethiopian,...
- 1st Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium On Manuscript Studies In The Digital Age
1st Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age October 24-25, 2008 To be held at the Chemical Heritage Foundation and the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA ***Registration deadline is October 19, 2008***...