John Barrett
When Jessica Hodgson, a graduate student at the University of Leicester, was examining a medieval manuscript in the collection of the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, she found a faintly etched inscription on one of the pages. She appeared to have the name “Eadburg” spelled out, but the etching was too thin to fully confirm it. So Hodgson turned to her technical lead, John Barrett, for her recent project ARCHiOx (analysis and documentation of Oxford’s cultural heritage) at Bodleian for help.
Thanks to the project’s prototype photometric stereo recording and 3D scanning system, Barrett confirmed Hodgson’s findings. Analysis revealed multiple other etchings of the name “Eadburg” (both full and abbreviated), as well as some graffiti etched into the margins. What is Eidberg? Hodgson believes she was a highly educated woman of high rank (possibly a female scribe or abbess) who lived sometime during the early Middle Ages (between 700 and her 750). I’m here. This latest discovery corroborates her 1935 discovery of the letters “EADB” and “+E+” in the bottom margin of another page of the same manuscript, both abbreviations of “Eadburh/Eadburg”. considered to be the shape
ARCHiOx project
The ARCHiOx project is a partnership between the Bodleian Libraries and the Factum Foundation, founded in the 1990s by Oxford-trained artist Adam Lowe. In 2001 Lowe moved to Madrid and explained to Ars: “An interdisciplinary workshop, a real playground for artists, building bridges between new technologies and traditional skills”. , Lowe founded the Factum Foundation for Digital Technology and Preservation. Today, as his research base for high-resolution, three-dimensional recordings of the surfaces of objects housed in museums and institutions around the world, including tombs, paintings, books and manuscripts such as the one housed in the Bodleian Museum. It’s working.
Various types of non-destructive X-ray imaging are frequently used in applications such as archaeologists and conservationists. This includes multispectral imaging, which takes visible blue, green, and red images and combines them with infrared and his x-ray images of the object. This reveals subtle hints of pigment as well as drawings and letters hidden beneath various layers of paint and ink.
For example, researchers previously used this technique to uncover hidden text in four Dead Sea Scroll fragments that were previously thought to be blank. A Swiss scientist used his multispectral imaging to reconstruct a photographic plate created by French physicist Gabriel Lippmann. Lippmann was a pioneer of color photography and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1908. And last year, scientists used this method to discover the first known Greek remnants of astronomer Hipparchus’ catalog of lost stars. This was hidden beneath the Christian text on medieval parchment.
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A Selene photometric scanner capturing one of the Lister engravings in the Bodleian Library.
John Barrett
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18th century copper engraving.
John Barrett
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Fine etching on the backside of the roll that was barely visible in traditional photography. Copper plate g. 21” has been released.
John Barrett
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Two 3D views of Rawl’s recorded surface. Copper plate e.65 generated using mapping software. The second example shows a layered view with albedo and shaded rendering. The engraved lines are about 60 microns deep and can be clearly seen.
John Barrett
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18th century copperplate engraving with music score engraved on the back.
John Barrett
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The same plate with annotations revealing the actual notes.
John Barrett
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(Left) Nipponica 373 ukiyo-e print. (Right) Albedo and shading rendering.
John Barrett
new imaging technology
Although Lowe knew these methods, he was surprised to find that no one had done the work of recording the surfaces of objects. “Traditionally, the digitization of books [focused on] Lowe stresses that this is a very important activity, but believes it was done at the expense of the kind of work Barrett does at Bodleian. What he calls the “materiality” of these manuscripts: surface quality, binding, typography, etc. So the Factorum Foundation began work first with his 3D scanning system, then with its own We have developed a photometric stereo scanner. I am using it for the first time.
