Brahma Blogs

This team blog is designed to allow a group of friends who have known each other for 20+ years to share their thoughts on culture, politics, religion, relationships, etc.

Monday, April 18, 2005

Hyperspectral Imagery and Greek Classics

A recent article in The Independent claims that a major breakthrough has been made in the use of modern technology to decipher badly damaged, ancient manuscripts.

From the page:

For more than a century, it has caused excitement and frustration in equal measure - a collection of Greek and Roman writings so vast it could redraw the map of classical civilisation. If only it was legible.

Now, in a breakthrough described as the classical equivalent of finding the holy grail, Oxford University scientists have employed infra-red technology to open up the hoard, known as the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, and with it the prospect that hundreds of lost Greek comedies, tragedies and epic poems will soon be revealed.

In the past four days alone, Oxford's classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world, lost for millennia. They even believe they are likely to find lost Christian gospels, the originals of which were written around the time of the earliest books of the New Testament.

I am reminded of J.B. Summit. Has anyone heard from J.B. recently?

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