(3-August-2010) U.S. scientists restoring the love of chess: Experts make damaged medieval manuscripts in Dresden readable again with new multispectral method

by Sandra Knispel
Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten
Friday 9 July 2010

Article higlights:

A team of researchers from the U.S. these days has worked at the Saxony State and University Library SLUB Dresden to make a unique handwritten manuscript from the Middle Ages readable again. The Middle French book "Les Esches d'Amour" (The Chess of Love) had been damaged in the Second World War...

...Dr. Roger Easton, professor of imaging science at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, has the technical management. He is happy that the new laboratory exists, but he doubts whether the whole Dresden manuscript will become visible again, we are all right.: Because "This technology is so new, currently, we only scratch the surface of what is possible.”

For five years Heyworth and a colleague had traveled two weeks each year to Dresden to decrypt the manuscript using a UV lamp. Much remained illegible. Then Heyworth received a $25,000 (€ 20,500) research grant from U.S. National Center for Preservation, Technology, and Training” and contacted Easton, whose work he had seen a documentary on television. Easton and his colleagues built the laboratory and brought it to Dresden..."

See German news article with English translation HERE

See a related news article HERE