Overview
- The Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource produced element-sensitive images of pages from the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, a reused manuscript preserved for centuries at Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai.
- New scans made the erased writing legible as bright signals, revealing portions of Aratus’s Phaenomena and appended star-position material consistent with Hipparchus’s catalog.
- Researchers report reading the ancient Greek word for Aquarius and related constellation details, indicating coordinates and maps were integrated alongside the poem in later copies.
- The technique relies on trace chemistry, with calcium-rich residues from older inks fluorescing under intense X-rays and allowing differentiation from later monastic overwriting.
- Following initial hints found in 2021, the team scanned 11 pages sent to SLAC last month, has begun decoding text from raw data, and plans further analysis and additional palimpsest scans.