What would you do with book so ancient that researchers are afraid to open? Take a CT scanner to it, of course.
University of Iowa researcher Paul C. Dilley and Brent Seales, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky, deployed a CT scanner to examine ink letters inside an early book written in southern Egypt around 400 to 600 A.D. They then fed that scan data into software created by Seales that was able to examine the data and create a readable text by assigning letters to their proper surface, according to an article in The New York Times.
The book, held at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York, is believed to contain the Acts of the Apostles, a book in the New Testament, and may contain other works as well, the article reports.
Seales said of his technique to the Times, “[It] can turn things thought to be of no value into precious objects.”
The scans were completed in December, and the researchers plan to produce readable pages sometime later this month, the story notes.
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Matt joined Chicago’s TriMed team in 2018 covering all areas of health imaging after two years reporting on the hospital field. He holds a bachelor’s in English from UIC, and enjoys a good cup of coffee and an interesting documentary.