The Book of Psalms, the 10th century monastery of St.. Catherine in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt is an impressive artifact itself. but scientists, studying the text in the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory of the National University of the United States at Stanford University, They were less interested in the text, than in the, what was hidden underneath.
So, the researchers were able to identify the remains of the ancient Greek medical text on parchment using a powerful X-ray beams.
In contrast to the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), used by scientists, It is much simpler and more common type of particle accelerator. The electrons are accelerated SSRL slightly below the speed of light in the trace multifaceted polygon. By using magnets to control the electron trajectory, researchers can generate X-rays, powerful enough, to reveal the hidden history of ancient documents.
In the case of the psalms of the 10th century, the team discovered, that a completely different text was written on the same pages, written five centuries earlier. The letter was phonetically distinguished Greek physician Galen, who lived by 130 g. BC. to 210 g. BC. His words were recorded in the pages of ancient text anonymous writer in a few hundred years after the death of Galen.
A few centuries after, these words have been deciphered, the ink was scraped off someone else, to make room for the Psalms. The source code is no longer visible to the naked eye, but with the help of X-rays, scientists have seen earlier letter.
Now, when researchers know, that hidden text is,, their next step will be opening as many words. They plan to do this, scanning the entire book. This process will take 10 hours for each 26 pages. After that, they will be tested and examined, Digital files will be available online.
