"Another Battle of Thermopylae found in palimpsest " Topic

"…The presence of hidden text in the Codex Vindobonensis was discovered decades ago, but even under UV light the text was too faint to be read accurately. A few years ago the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) funded Martin and Grusková's research into palimpsests, allowing them to look behind the visible script of the codex with EMEL's multi-spectral technology. The pages were irradiated with lights of different wavelengths. Each type of light is absorbed into the parchment and ink to different degrees. Photographs capture the degrees of absorption and then computer software stitches the pictures together to create a detailed image of the hidden text.

With this system, Martin and Grusková were able to read pieces of the ancient Greek text underwriting the medieval and discovered a precious treasure: significant sections of a history of Rome's 3rd century Gothic wars written by 3rd century Athenian historian P. Herennius Dexippus. His history, the Scythica (Dexippus called the Goths Scythians), was only known from very fragmentary quotes in much later books. These hefty passages shed a whole new light on the wars of the mid-3rd century.

Martin and Grusková published several of the passages into German in 2014. Now Oxford University's Christopher Mallan and the University of Queensland's Caillan Davenport have translated one of the fragments into English. It's a splendid description of a battle at Thermopylae, probably the most famous battle site of the ancient world where in 480 B.C. King Leonidas' 300 Spartan warriors and other Greek forces took their brave last stand against the far larger army of Persian King Xerxes…"

Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

At first, got confused with this one. Googled Codex Vindobonensis and got a Mexican text – only rereading did I find that it's a general term, that I should have googled Codex Vindobonensis historicus gr. 73.

That starting quote 'The presence of hidden text in the Codex Vindobonensi' basically means 'The presence of hidden text in a text in a museum in Vienna'.

It was "Ad portas" one might say. Interesting read Armand, Thank you

A votre service mon ami!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Interesting find. The battle of Thermopylae described in the manuscript is not the one fought in 480 B.C. There is also another battle of Thermopylae fought in 279 B.C. during the Celtic invasion of Greece.

Glad you enjoyed it my friend.

Amicalement
Armand

Wow, very interesting! Thanks a lot for posting!