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Reviel Netz, William Noel, Nigel Wilson, Natalie Tchernetska, eds.
The Archimedes Palimpsest.

Publisher: Cambridge University Press.
Publication due: November 2011.
Size: 337 x 241 mm.
Page count: 700pp.
Illustrations: 8 b/w, 127 colour.

Publisher's recommended price
Hardback, 2-vol. set ISBN 9781107016842, £150.00
Hardback, vol. 1 only ISBN 9781107014572, £85.00
Hardback, vol. 2 only ISBN 9781107014374, £85.00

Description:

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.

Contents:
Volume one: 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.

Volume two:
Preface
1. Archimedes: treatises
2. Hyperides: speeches
3. Commentary on Aristotle's Categories
Appendix.