Revealing lost text with multispectral imaging
KALAMAZOO, Mich.—In a pitch-black room in Waldo Library’s basement digitization studio, two researchers huddled over damaged manuscripts, scrolls and parchment fragments, preparing to uncover text lost to time and the elements.
Dr. Helen Davies, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, and Katie Albers-Morris, University of Rochester, demonstrated a cutting-edge, multispectral scanning process on some of our medieval manuscripts and documents during the 59th International Congress on Medieval Studies.
“We are doing this as a demonstration of how technology is being used to advance humanities research, particularly in medieval studies,” says Dr. Susan Steuer, special collections librarian.
The items selected for scanning will be used for future classes on paleography in the Medieval Studies program. Paleography is the study of ancient writing or inscriptions and deciphering and dating historical manuscripts. Davies’ scans may help reveal illegible or erased text on these manuscripts.
Fire, water and improper storage conditions can damage manuscripts. The multispectral system can recover text that is no longer legible—whether due to damage or erasure.
“If we’re handwriting something and we mess up, we either scratch it out [or] we erase it,” said Davies. “If we need to turn the page in a notebook, we can do that.”
Things were more difficult in the Middle Ages before paper was freely available. Manuscripts, scrolls and documents were written on parchment made from prepared animal skins. Writing materials were expensive and available in limited quantities, so reusing parchment was common.
Instead of grabbing a new sheet, people in the Middle Ages would remove the text using chemicals or scrape off markings with stones before rotating the sheet and starting again from a new edge. This erasure method often didn’t remove all minute ink particles under the surface.
“The ink is still there in the same way it is with an old tattoo, but it's not necessarily visible on the surface,” Davies said.
The multispectral system uses imaging technology originally created for satellites. On a smaller scale, scanning medieval manuscripts and documents under different light waves can help reveal any remnants left behind.
Davies’ presentation at the Congress focused on how they are pushing the technology forward and the unique collaborations involved in restoring medieval documents.
Davies’ system is portable and less costly than other scanning tools. These factors allowed Davies’ to bring the system to Western for the Medieval Congress.
These types of projects are often a collaboration between experts in technology, material handling, languages, paleography and other disciplines.
“It’s kind of rare to find somebody who’s an expert in all of these things,” Davies adds. “And it certainly works better if you work as a team.”
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