CSI: Archimedes
As you walk into building 8, The College of Science, you're immediately bombarded with mad scientists, test tubes, and explosions! Not really, or at least hopefully no explosion. In the Science Center, if you walk past the center of the science chaos, hang a left, and head towards room 1300 you’ll find Roger Easton and his Exhibit, "Reading Between (And Through) The Lines."
Roger L. Easton, a professor of imaging arts here at RIT, works extremely hard at RIT and all over the world imaging, studying, and dissecting ancient writings. Having worked on such important pieces as the Dead Sea Scrolls, an Archimedes palimpsest, and Waldseemüller’s Map, Easton has had well beyond his fair share of experience, and it shows when he speaks.
It started fifteen years ago when Robert Johnston, The Dean of the college of Fine Arts here at RIT at the time, bought several 8 x 10 color transparencies of images taken of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Johnston, along with Easton and Keith Knox, a colleague from Xerox with a similar interest, managed to pull lines of text that no one knew merely using readily available technologies. They soon obtained actual samples of the Dead Sea Scroll from the Arch Bishop of Jerusalem’s collection to investigate further and were covered by and aired on the Discovery Channel.
Some years later they were granted the opportunity to image a palimpsest, an over written manual script, thought to have disappeared of Archimedes for Christie’s Auction. It was known to contain such important texts as Archimedes Method and On Floating Bodies, but upon imaging the text they made discoveries far beyond what was expected. According to Easton this is one of the most culturally important text of our time, but not only in the aspects of science but also history (thanks to Hyperides), religion, and philosophy! At any rate, the book sold for over 2 million dollars and is now on display, and continually being dissected, at the Walter’s Art Museum in Baltimore, MD.
Beyond the obvious importance of the work being done here, and the enjoyment Easton gets out of it, are the technologies used. These incredibly interesting technologies include X-ray florescence and Multi-Spectral Imaging which use light emitting diodes as the light sources. As Easton spoke the only thing I could think of was Nicholas Cage in National Treasury, and as it turns out, guess who helped sculpt the ancient text imaging? That's right, Easton and his crew! "I like to sometimes refer to it as Archimedes CSI," Easton laughed.
Easton and his students are overly ready to dowse you with some of the most surprisingly interesting information you’ve ever seen! Literally you can see it, between the lines!