Spectral Imaging Illuminates Damaged Manuscripts
Age-darkened and stained manuscript pages yield up their secrets to a historical imaging technique that uses different wavelengths of light to increase visual contrast. Spectral imaging can even reveal writing that has been “erased” – where a layer of vellum has been scraped off to provide a new writing surface.
Bearman is retired from Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where another independent literary scholar currently works – check out JPL scientist Sabrina Feldman’s fascinating investigation into the Shakespeare Apocrypha.