'New Light on Old Manuscripts: Recent Advances in Palimpsest Studies' (Viena, 24-27 abril 2018)

Dear colleagues,

We would like to draw your attention to a large international conference that will be hosted at the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, funded by Prof. Claudia Rapp’s FWF Wittgenstein-Award, from 24 to 27 April 2018.

'New Light on Old Manuscripts: Recent Advances in Palimpsest Studies' brings together an international assembly of scholars who have been in the forefront of the study of erased and re-written parchment manuscripts in recent years, either in reading and analyzing palimpsests texts or in making them legible through advanced imaging and image processing methods.

The conference will also feature work that has been accomplished in the course of the Sinai Palimpsests Project that is now available online (sinaipalimpsests.org). The Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine is not only the oldest Christian monastery (including its library) in continuous operation, it also contains the world's largest collection of palimpsested manuscripts on parchment. In the course of the Sinai Palimpsests Project—undertaken at the invitation of the Monastery by an international team of camera specialists, image scientists, and textual scholars—more than half of this palimpsest collection was imaged using cutting-edge multispectral photography, rendered legible through innovative methods of computer-based analysis, and the erased texts identified by experts in all the languages of the Christian Orient.

The Opening Lecture by Father Justin Sinaites, the Librarian of Saint Catherine's Monastery, on the topic “The Sinai Palimpsests: Recovering Ancient Texts and the Early History of the Monastery” will take place on 24 April, 17:00 in the main building of the University of Vienna ("BIG Lecture Hall" Universitätsring 1, 1010 Vienna). The conference sessions will take place in the main building of the Austrian Academy of Sciences from 25th to 27th April (9:00-18:00/18:30 - at the “ÖAW Sitzungssaal”, Doktor-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz 2, 1010 Vienna, First Floor).

Both the conference and the lecture are open to the public. There are no fees for participation and registration is not necessary.

Please find attached the lecture announcement and the programme of the

conference on our website http://rapp.univie.ac.at/.

We hope that these events meet with your interest and would welcome further inquiries. Please direct these to Ms. Paraskevi Sykopetritou (paraskevi.sykopetritou@univie.ac.at).