Multispectral Data of manuscript "Petermann II Nachtr. 24" of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preussischer Kulturbesitz

The multispectral imaging campaign to recover the damaged writing (palimpsest) in 'SBB Peterman II Nachtrag 24', was performed in November 2016. The imaging was carried out at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz. The campaign was co-organised by the Early Manuscript Electronic Library (EMEL), the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC), the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM), the Evangelisch-Theologische Fakultät, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Imaging was carried out using the CSMC Megavision E7 multispectral imaging system, which, prior to the imaging campaign, was overhauled and upgraded (new LED, transmissive light sheet) by Megavision senior engineer Ken Boydston. The MSI system was operated by Damianos Kasotakis (EMEL) and Ivan Shevchuk (CSMC).

Original, high quality, CIELAB TIF images can be found in the Color and PROCESSED folders within the zip file. Preview JPEGs in sRGB color space are compressed and of lower quality and are only intended for quick previewing. For information about filenames and folder structure as well as MSI system related info, please read the Brief Descriptions of Multispectral Imaging (MSI) Datasets .

Currently only the flattened and color images are uploaded. Raw images are not part of this dataset to reduce the size of this upload. Raw images are stored internally on the servers of CSMC. Image processing results of the acquired data will be made available in near future.

Link to digitized manuscript (Digitalisierte Sammlungen SBB)

Links to publications:

Erho, Ted. "Ethiopic Palimpsests". Palimpsests and Related Phenomena across Languages and Cultures, edited by Jost Gippert, José Maksimczuk and Hasmik Sargsyan, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2025, pp. 393-432. 

Knox, Keith T. "When Erased Iron Gall Characters Misbehave". Manuscript Cultures Nr 15, p. 105, 201

Stuckenbruck, Loren T., and Ira Rabin. “Die Entdeckung verlorener Text: Foto- und Textarbeiten am Untertext einer altäthiopischen Handschrift.“ In Bibliotheksmagazin 13 n.2 (2018), Ss. 72-76 

Knox, Keith T. (2023), ‘Image Processing Methods that Reveal Erased Handwriting: Developments of the Last Two Decades’, in Rapp, Claudia, Giulia Rossetto, Jana Grusková and Grigory Kessel (eds) (2023), New Light on Old Manuscripts:The Sinai Palimpsests and Other Advances in Palimpsest Studies (Veröffentlichungen zur Byzanzforschung, 45), Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 395–406

Additional, selected manuscritps were captured at the end of this multispectral imaging campaign. The link to the dataset can also be found in related identifiers.