The Archimedes Palimpsest

Complete set of colour images and transcriptions of the most important manuscripts discovered in the Archimedes Palimpsest.

Reviel Netz (Edited by), William Noel (Edited by), Nigel Wilson (Edited by), Natalie Tchernetska (Edited by)

9781107014374, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 November 2011

352 pages, 160 colour illus.
34.5 x 25.1 x 4 cm, 2.5 kg

'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

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. Images and transcriptions of three of these manuscripts are provided here. The first contains seven treatises by Archimedes, including two unique texts, Method and Stomachion, as well as the only extant Greek version of Floating Bodies. Previously unknown speeches by Hyperides and a second- or third-century commentary on Aristotle's Categories follow. The product of ten years of conservation, imaging, and scholarship, this book will be of interest to manuscript scholars, classicists, and historians of science.

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

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX], History of mathematics [PBX], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], Conservation, restoration & care of artworks [ABC]