Multispectral Imaging Project

FAIN: PW-50427-09

Brigham Young University (Provo, UT 84602)
Roger Thomas Macfarlane (Project Director: August 2008 to March 2013)

Multi-spectral imaging of 400 illegible, or legibly problematic papyri from collections at the University of Michigan; University of California, Berkeley; and Columbia University. The resulting images would be disseminated via the Web-based Advanced Papyrological Information System (APIS).

The Ancient Textual Imaging Group at Brigham Young University has pioneered developments into enhancing texts of deteriorated and damaged papyri using multi-spectral imaging. This process has rendered legible many stained, discolored, or faded portions of ancient documents. In effect, the process has restored the documents to a state of legibility that they have not possessed since antiquity. The BYU Multi-spectral Imaging Project is a two-year venture proposed by the Ancient Textual Imaging Group to capture, process, and provide public access via the Advanced Papyrological Information System to high-quality multi-spectral images of hundreds of legibly problematic papyrus documents from the most important papyrus collections in the country.