David Shutt
Pronouns:
Research Mentor(s): Richard Janko
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Classical Studies / LSA
Program: UROP
Session: Session 5 (2:40pm – 3:30pm)
Authors:
Abstract
The oldest book to have been found in Europe is the Derveni Papyrus, a burned and fragmented scroll containing writings from the ancient mystery cult of Orpheus. It was discovered in Derveni, Macedonia, from which it takes its name, in 1962. The scroll was partially burned on a funeral pyre and broken in two, so it is carbonized and severely fragmented with many smaller fragments still unplaced. The carbonization renders the text difficult to read, and since there are parts of the text that have not been recovered, the text is not as fully known as it could be. In this project, we are working with two sets of photographs of the scroll to accurately resize and place the fragments in a digital model in Photoshop. The infrared images we use in the model make the text more legible, while we verify their dimensions against a set of images that have been previously measured. We are working from the inside of the scroll toward the outside so that we are able to verify our progress by tracing the increased measurements of each subsequent section. When the model is complete, scholars will be able to obtain the most complete retrievable text of the papyrus and to reconstruct the parts that are missing more easily. The new readings will help to understand both the scroll itself and the society that used it more accurately.
