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Long-Lost Archimedes Palimpsest Leaf Found in French Museum Archives

Advanced imaging could recover concealed Archimedean text beneath a later illumination.

Overview

  • CNRS historian Victor Gysembergh identified folio 123 in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Blois, confirming its match to 1906 photographs.
  • One side preserves geometric diagrams with a largely readable passage from On the Sphere and the Cylinder, Book I, Propositions 39–41.
  • The reverse shows the prophet Daniel with two lions, reportedly added around 1942, which currently prevents conventional reading of the older text.
  • The discovery is published in the German Journal of Papyrology and Epigraphy, with plans for multispectral and synchrotron X‑ray fluorescence analysis pending authorization.
  • The main manuscript remains with a private owner at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, two photographed leaves are still missing, and reunification of the rediscovered page is undecided.