New Approaches Using Image Processing of Spectral Data from Synchrotron X-ray-fluorescence Element Maps to Recover Erased Text from the Vienna Dexippus Palimpsest

Abstract

The article provides insights into the digital recovery of the Scythica Vindobonensia, the Vienna Dexippus palimpsest. These new fragments were discovered some years ago in a palimpsest of the Austrian National Library in Vienna and contain lost ancient historical text about Gothic incursions into Roman provinces in the Balkans in the third century AD. In order to render the erased script of the eleventh-century Greek manuscript visible, the classical scholars in charge of deciphering and editing the Scythica Vindobonensia cooperate closely with specialists in the field of digital recovery of palimpsests. The article presents new approaches using image processing of spectral data from synchrotron x-ray-fluorescence element maps to recover illegible areas of the erased text. The work on the palimpsest is still in progress.