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What in the palimpsest remains unread or unidentified?

Asked 26 Oct 2026 by ·Part of Did the imaging programme recover the erased Archimedes text wherever the parchment survives?·4 answers·0·0 following
Most likely: much of what remains is physically lost to scraping, mould and missing leaves and cannot be recovered by any…Ahead on the evidence, not yet confirmed. It needs two reviews to be accepted.

Where it stands

Four answers have been proposed. Much of what remains is physically lost to scraping, mould and missing leaves and cannot be recovered by any… leads, with evidence 1 for: partly supported by its tests. Three are still possible. Of the one narrower question under it, none is answered yet.

Why it matters

The imaging was aimed at Archimedes. Two of the other erased manuscripts in the book are still unidentified, and three Archimedes leaves are missing⁠[1]⁠[2].

Answers 4

Evidence: 1 for
Most likely
None of these.
Not tested enough to call either way
Evidence: none yet
Still possible
Evidence: none yet
Still possible
Evidence: 1 for
Still possible

History

  1. Toth & Emery: the release keeps every band as a registered image, so new processing can be applied without new imaging.For: The unidentified undertexts and uncertain passages can be read from the existing image stacks with newer…
  2. Asked on this site
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