Pseudo-color enhanced x-ray fluorescence imaging of the Archimedes Palimpsest

A combination of x-ray fluorescence and image processing has been shown to recover text characters written in iron gall ink on parchment, even when obscured by gold paint. Several leaves of the Archimedes Palimpsest were imaged using rapid-scan, x-ray fluorescence imaging performed at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. A simple linear show-through model is shown to successfully separate different layers of text in the x-ray images, making the text easier to read by the scholars.