A Missing Page From One of History’s Most Famous Manuscripts Has Been Found

Historians have long assumed that a portion of one of the most famous mathematical documents had gone missing forever. However, recently, in a French museum, it was discovered that this document had actually been part of their collection all along, and it is part of the Archimedes Palimpsest, a tenth-century Greek document containing copies of works and publications by the ancient genius Archimedes of Syracuse. The document is considered one of the most important windows into ancient scientific thinking, and its fascinating feature of this document is that it was scraped clean in the Middle Ages to make room for new writing, which is why it is called a "palimpsest."

The newly identified leaf was found in Blois, France, at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, and is linked to page 123 of the Archimedes Palimpsest. Historian Victor Gysembergh made the discovery, a researcher with the Centre Léon Robin for Research on Ancient Thought at CNRS and Sorbonne University. The page includes pieces from Archimedes’ treatise On the Sphere and the Cylinder, Book I, specifically Propositions 39–41, which expands the current record of the mathematician’s work, according to the CNRS press release.

Part of the identification relied on historical detective work such as comparing the Blois leaf with photographs taken in 1906 by Danish historian Johan Ludvig Heiberg, whose images of the manuscript are still preserved at the Royal Danish Library. The museum page was definitely the long-missing fragment of the Palimpsest (CNRS), which was identified by comparing the layout and details in these photographs.

The page is difficult to read today despite its importance. One side is covered by a medieval prayer manuscript, while the other side includes a twentieth-century illustration of the Prophet Daniel with lions, both of which damage certain portions of Archimedes’ original text and geometric diagrams and block direct visual examination (CNRS). Researchers plan to use advanced imaging techniques like multispectral imaging and synchrotron-based X-ray fluorescence analysis, which are a few methods that could help detect traces of ancient ink beneath later additions without damaging the delicate parchment, in order to decode the hidden writing. As reported in earlier studies by Nature and other scientific publications, similar techniques have already helped reveal that were previously erased from the Palimpsest.

This newly discovered page could give us new insight into Archimedes’ views on geometry, particularly those relating to spheres and cylinders, and could significantly influence the development of mathematics and physics. The Palimpsest is symbolic of the fact that ancient knowledge can resurface in the most unexpected ways as historians and scientists continue to interpret it with modern technology.