At first glance, the manuscript appears to be a medieval Christian prayer book.
But on the same pages as the prayers, experts using a high-tech imaging system have discovered commentary likely written in the third century A.D. on a work written around 350 B.C. by the Greek philosopher Aristotle.
The discovery is the third ancient text to emerge from the layers of writing on the much reused pages. In 2002 researchers had uncovered writings by the mathematician Archimedes and the fourth-century B.C. politician Hyperides.
Last year one of the pages was found to contain a famous work by Archimedes about buoyancy that had previously been known only from an incomplete Latin translation.
Project director William Noel, curator of manuscripts at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, called the latest discovery a “sensational find.”
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This IS sensational. Everyone’s going on about aliens, but to me that’s just a matter of time before we run into those. Discovering a bit of paper after 2400 years is just a tad more exciting.
Dutch author Willem, who wrote Reynard in the 13th century, is mentioned as ‘he who made Madoc’. To this day, we don’t know who or what Madoc is. I want to see the day when we dig up that ms. somewhere.
Thanks for this. Makes my weekend.
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