Lost Page of Archimedes Palimpsest Found

Researchers from France’s National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) have identified a missing page from the Archimedes Palimpsest at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Blois. The leaf, identified as page 123, contains geometric diagrams and passages from the mathematician’s treatise on the sphere and the cylinder, which were scrubbed and overwritten by monks with religious texts in the 13th century. The discovery was confirmed by comparing the leaf to 1906 photographs taken by scholar Johan Ludvig Heiberg before the manuscript was broken up and partially forged by an art dealer in the 1930s.

This find is significant because the Archimedes Palimpsest is one of the most important scientific manuscripts in existence, containing the only known copies of several of the Greek mathematician's works. The identification of this leaf provides an opportunity to use modern X-ray fluorescence imaging to read text that remained illegible during previous studies at the Walters Art Museum. Furthermore, the discovery may trigger a comprehensive re-examination of the entire manuscript using advanced technology to uncover deeper layers of ancient scientific thought that were previously inaccessible.