A biological reading of a palimpsest

Jiří	 Vnouček; Laura C.  Viñas-Caron; Ismael  Rodríguez Palomo; Natasha  Fazlic; Matthew Driscoll; Sarah Fiddyment; Matthew Collins

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.106786

A biological reading of a palimpsest

Jiří Vnouček, Laura C. Viñas-Caron^*, Ismael Rodríguez Palomo^*, Natasha Fazlic, Matthew Driscoll, Sarah Fiddyment, Matthew Collins

^*Corresponding author for this work

Royal Danish Library

Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review

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Abstract

n the Middle Ages, texts were recorded and preserved on parchment, an animal-derived material. When this resource was scarce, older manuscripts were sometimes recycled to write new manuscripts. In the process, the ancient text was erased, creating what is known as a palimpsest. Here, we explore the potential of peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF), widely applied to identify species, to help reconnect the dispersed leaves of a manuscript and reveal differences in parchment manufacturing. In combination with visual methods, we analyzed a whole palimpsest, the codex AM 795 4to from the Arnamagnæan Collection (Copenhagen, Denmark). We find that both sheep and goat skins were used in this manuscript, and that parchment differed in quality. Notably, the PMF analysis distinguished five groups of folios which match the visual groupings. We conclude that this detailed interrogation of a single mass spectrum can be a promising tool to understand how palimpsest manuscripts were constructed

Original language	English
Article number	106786
Journal	iScience
Volume	26
Issue number	6
Number of pages	13
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2023.106786
Publication status	Published - 2023

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Cite this

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title = "A biological reading of a palimpsest",

abstract = "n the Middle Ages, texts were recorded and preserved on parchment, an animal-derived material. When this resource was scarce, older manuscripts were sometimes recycled to write new manuscripts. In the process, the ancient text was erased, creating what is known as a palimpsest. Here, we explore the potential of peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF), widely applied to identify species, to help reconnect the dispersed leaves of a manuscript and reveal differences in parchment manufacturing. In combination with visual methods, we analyzed a whole palimpsest, the codex AM 795 4to from the Arnamagn{\ae}an Collection (Copenhagen, Denmark). We find that both sheep and goat skins were used in this manuscript, and that parchment differed in quality. Notably, the PMF analysis distinguished five groups of folios which match the visual groupings. We conclude that this detailed interrogation of a single mass spectrum can be a promising tool to understand how palimpsest manuscripts were constructed",

author = "Ji{\v r}{\'i} Vnou{\v c}ek and Vi{\~n}as-Caron, {Laura C.} and {Rodr{\'i}guez Palomo}, Ismael and Natasha Fazlic and Matthew Driscoll and Sarah Fiddyment and Matthew Collins",

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doi = "10.1016/j.isci.2023.106786",

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T1 - A biological reading of a palimpsest

AU - Vnouček, Jiří

AU - Viñas-Caron, Laura C.

AU - Rodríguez Palomo, Ismael

AU - Fazlic, Natasha

AU - Driscoll, Matthew

AU - Fiddyment, Sarah

AU - Collins, Matthew

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - n the Middle Ages, texts were recorded and preserved on parchment, an animal-derived material. When this resource was scarce, older manuscripts were sometimes recycled to write new manuscripts. In the process, the ancient text was erased, creating what is known as a palimpsest. Here, we explore the potential of peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF), widely applied to identify species, to help reconnect the dispersed leaves of a manuscript and reveal differences in parchment manufacturing. In combination with visual methods, we analyzed a whole palimpsest, the codex AM 795 4to from the Arnamagnæan Collection (Copenhagen, Denmark). We find that both sheep and goat skins were used in this manuscript, and that parchment differed in quality. Notably, the PMF analysis distinguished five groups of folios which match the visual groupings. We conclude that this detailed interrogation of a single mass spectrum can be a promising tool to understand how palimpsest manuscripts were constructed

AB - n the Middle Ages, texts were recorded and preserved on parchment, an animal-derived material. When this resource was scarce, older manuscripts were sometimes recycled to write new manuscripts. In the process, the ancient text was erased, creating what is known as a palimpsest. Here, we explore the potential of peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF), widely applied to identify species, to help reconnect the dispersed leaves of a manuscript and reveal differences in parchment manufacturing. In combination with visual methods, we analyzed a whole palimpsest, the codex AM 795 4to from the Arnamagnæan Collection (Copenhagen, Denmark). We find that both sheep and goat skins were used in this manuscript, and that parchment differed in quality. Notably, the PMF analysis distinguished five groups of folios which match the visual groupings. We conclude that this detailed interrogation of a single mass spectrum can be a promising tool to understand how palimpsest manuscripts were constructed

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DO - 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106786

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