A New Challenge: A Syriac Palimpsest

[Will Noel]

This blog is concerned with another project being undertaken at The Walters Art Museum, concerning a Syriac Palimpsest. Many - but not all of the same team as imaged the Archimedes Palimpsest, are involved in this project as well. Its a tough nut to crack. Look for contributions and updates on this blog.

[Will Noel]

Dear All

We have loaded quite a few files onto the internet for people to see between March 5 and March 11. We would be most grateful now if you could look at a range of folios and tell us whether the text is of significance or not. The most encouraging folios seem to be the following.

91v
87r
50v and 51r
125v and 126r
141r
156v and 157r
175v
178r
221v

Thank you all so much. I look forward to hearing from you.


Best Will

[Will Noel]

Processed images of conjoined leaves 50v and 51r have been hosted on the
image bank today, including the text in the gutter. These include both
"pseudocolor" and "PCA" processed images.

Let us know which processing seems to offer the most undertext, as well
as you comments on the strengths and weaknesses of each type of image.
Of course, most importantly: What does the undertext say?

Just drop me a note, and/or post your comments here. Your feedback is
important as the imaging scientists refine their image processing
techniques.

Thanks,

Will

[Will Noel]

Dear All

On the website today, under March 7, you will find "pseudocolors" and "PCA2's" of several leaves from the Syriac palimpsest. They represent no advance in processing from those that you have already seen, but we do hope that this will give you more text to identify.

We have taken many more images than those that we have hosted, partly because we have not has the time to process them yet. They will be coming up in the next few weeks.

But if you can help with anything to do with text identification from these images, I would be delighted to hear from you. Please feel free, also, to share them with whomsoever you think would be able to help.

Thanks so much, and we will be in touch again soon.

Best Will

[Will Noel]

Dear All

We have just hosted on the image bank

2 March
SYRIAC_87r_pseudocolor_subsampled.tif (21 Mbytes)

We would like to know if you think it is better than these:

27 February
SYRIAC_87r_pseudocolor.tif (28MBytes)
SYRIAC_87r_ultraviolet.tif (9.5 Mbytes)

Thank you so much

Will

[Michael Toth]

A major winter storm forecast for the area tonight and into tomorrow, we'll see whether we wind up with a few flakes or major dumping. Roger, Keith and Will have a walk through the snow to the Walters, Bill and Doug a more moderate drive, and I will have a long drive or train ride, so we'll see who gets there when and who can do what. Hope to wrap up the monochrome images of the Archie leaves in need of further study, and then implement the rest of our game plan for the Syriac. Should be an interesting week of discovery, albeit with probable technical and experimental frustrations....

[Michael Toth]

Bill, Ken and Roger completed setup and imaged of the Syriac Palimpsest with the monochrome camera yesterday, while Will kept things moving along. A few teething problems with the computer and interfaces -- an advanced imaging program without a few technical problems is like a picnic without a few ants? After a quick review, the images look pretty good and offer potential for processing and scholarly review. Roger is working on pseudocolor processing of 187r, so hopefully we'll have something for the scholars to review and work with later today. Stay tuned!

[Will Noel]

Today was set up day. Going well. We hope to start imaging tomorrow.