The Archimedes Palimpsest 2 Volume Set: (The Archimedes Palimpsest Publications)

The Archimedes Palimpsest is the name given to a Byzantine prayer book that was written over a number of earlier manuscripts, including one that contained two unique works by Archimedes, unquestionably the greatest mathematician of antiquity. Sold at auction in 1998, it has since been the subject of a privately funded project to conserve, image, and transcribe its texts. In Volume 1 the scientists, conservators, classicists, and historians involved in the project discuss in full their techniques and their discoveries. These include new speeches by the classical Athenian orator Hyperides, a lost commentary on Aristotle's Categories from the second or third century AD, and substantial re-readings and reinterpretations of the works by Archimedes. Volume 2 contains a complete set of colour images and transcriptions of the most important manuscripts that constitute the Palimpsest. The volumes will be of interest to manuscript scholars, conservators, classicists, and historians of science.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: the Archimedes Palimpsest project William Noel; Part I. The Manuscripts: Part II. History: 1. The making of the Euchologion Abigail Quandt; 2. The strange and eventful history of the Archimedes Palimpsest John Lowden; 3. Itinera Archimedea: on Heiberg in Constantinople and Archimedes in Copenhagen Erik Petersen; Part III. Conservation: 4. Conserving the Archimedes Palimpsest Abigail Quandt; Part IV. The Digital Palimpsest: 5. Imaging and image-processing techniques William A. Christens-Barry, Roger L. Easton, Jr and Keith T. Knox; 6. Imaging with x-ray fluorescence Uwe Bergmann; 7. The Palimpsest data set Doug Emery, Alex Lee and Michael Toth; Part V. The Texts: 8. The Palimpsest in context Natalie Tchernetska and Nigel Wilson; 9. The place of Codex C in Archimedes scholarship Reviel Netz; Appendix: concordance of foliations.

Review :
'The imminent massive publication of a complete facsimile and transcription will be a huge gift to the study of ancient mathematics.' Alexander Jones, Wall Street Journal 'There is enormous expectation in the scholarly community about the arrival of the first copies of a new book from Cambridge University Press, which contains full color images of the palimpsest, a technical account of how the images were made and complete transcriptions of the texts. It's too early to say whether this will revolutionize our understanding of Greek mathematics, but it will contain new texts thought to have been lost forever by the Greek orator Hyperides and the most complete versions of several works by Archimedes, including two books which exist only in this manuscript. This is the iceberg in full view, a massive tome that took more than a decade to produce, recovering - perhaps as fully as can ever be hoped - texts that miraculously escaped the oblivion of decay and destruction.' The Washington Post 'For a beautiful classical book - and I mean for the quality of the printed object itself as much as for its contents - first prize goes to the two-volume Archimedes Palimpsest … the amazing images in the book, revealing how the decipherment has been pulled off, are as remarkable as the contents.' Mary Beard, The Times Literary Supplement 'Cambridge University Press have surpassed themselves: these are, quite simply, among the loveliest printed books produced this century. Both volumes contain hundreds of photographs, all in breathtaking full colour; the type is elegant and spacious, and the page proportions of the layout are beautifully harmonious. It is a joy that serious books of such extraordinary art can still be produced.' The Times Literary Supplement