A book of tenth - C psalm recovered from St. Catherine ’s Monastery on Egypt ’s Sinai Peninsula is an impressive artifact in itself . But the scientists studying this schoolbook at the U.S. Department of Energy ’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University were less interested in the open text edition than in what was blot out beneath it . AsGizmodoreports , the research worker were able to identify the stiff of an ancient Hellenic medical textbook on the parchment using high - power x - ray .
Unlike theLarge Hadron Colliderin Switzerland , the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource ( SSRL ) used by the scientist is a much simpler and more common eccentric of subatomic particle accelerator . In the SSRL , electrons speed up to just below the speed of light while tracing a many - sided polygonal shape . Using attractor to pull wires the negatron ' itinerary , the research worker can produce Adam - beam beam muscular enough to reveal the obscure history of ancient documents .
In the case of the tenth - C psalms , the team discovered that the same page had held an entirely unlike text writtenfive centuriesearlier . The writing was a transcription of the quarrel of the prominent Greek physicianGalen , who know from 130 CE to around 210 CE . His words were recorded on the pages in the ancient Syriac speech communication by an unknown author a few hundred years after Galen ’s death .
Several centuries after those words were transcribed , the ink was scratch off by someone else to make elbow room for the Psalm . The original textual matter is no longer seeable to the au naturel eye , but by blast the parchment with x - ray , the scientists can see where the elder composition had once mark the pageboy . you’re able to see it below — it ’s the piece of writing in green .
Now that the researchers know the hidden text edition is there , their next step will be uncovering as many words as potential . They be after to do this by scanning the Quran in its entirety , a process that will take 10 hours for each of the 26 pageboy . Once they ’ve been scan and take , the digital files will be shared online .
speck particle accelerator are just one shaft scientists utilise to decipher messages that were erased centuries ago . Recently , conservationists at the Library of Congress used multispectral imaging , a method acting that bounces unlike wavelength of light off a Sir Frederick Handley Page , to reveal the pigments of an oldAlexander Hamilton lettersomeone had scrub out .
[ h / tGizmodo ]
