Arcadia is awarding another grant for the next stage of the Sinai Palimpsests Project that is being carried out at the Saint Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai in Egypt.

The grant will enable the Early Manuscript Electronic Library (EMEL) to undertake a sustained spectral imaging programme through a transmissive, multi-spectral light source. Through this cutting-edge technology, EMEL will be able to uncover erased text from the Sinai palimpsests. While the ink residues have been lost, iron gall inks that have eaten into the parchment of the palimpsests have left behind a new artefact of erased writing – letter shaped ‘channels’ in the parchment. This enables transmissive illumination to identify the lost text. Since parchment is thinner at these channels, light shined through the parchment often reveals clear lines of legible text.

Since 2009, the Arcadia Fund has awarded a total of $132,000 to EMEL for the Sinai Palimpsest Project. The funding has gone to support survey work and research as well as the design, fabrication and testing of prototype devices.

Find out more about the grant »

See the results of the survey »