Finally an explanation on the Independent article, from the PAPY mailing
list:

From: Dirk Obbink <dirk.obbink@...> (by way of Adam
Bülow-Jacobsen)
Subject: MSI of Oxy papyri

Like other collections we do not normally announce our findings in
advance of publication. In this case a team from ISPART (formerly CPART)
at Brigham Young University in Utah spent last week creating MSI images
(that is, at all ranges of the light band) of papyri in Oxford as part
of a project begun in 2002. We scanned portions of the unrolled
Herculaneum papyrus in the Bodleian Library and experimented on
problematic carbonised and non-carbonised samples in the Oxyrhynchus
collection in the Sackler Library (including documents), some of them
for final checks in texts scheduled for publication in the next two
volumes of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. The results, which are still under
analysis, and on some of which I am reporting this week at the Center
for the Study of the Tebtunis Papyri in Berkeley and on 16 May in
Oxford, were of mixed success, revealing many new readings and
confirmation of uncertain readings in some problem areas, none at all in
others, depending on settings and surface type. In some ranges and
surfaces even less writing could be read than with the eye or none at
all. As usual with the Oxy. papyri a number of new identifications
emerged of literary and documentary texts not previously made by the
usual means, together with the isolation of four or five different types
of surface and obscurity that respond well or not well to the BYU
process. This process, perfected on the Herculaneum papyri since 1999
(similar to that described by Steven Booras in Cronache Ercolanesi and
Nigel Wilson in his shortly to appear articles on the Vatican Menander
palimpsest in the Journal of the Walters Art Museum and the proceedings
of Rinacimento Virtuale), captures rapidly a series of high-definition
digital images at different ranges of the light spectrum by means of an
automated, rotating wheel containing c.15 filtres and passing these in
successing before the camera's lens. The process seemed to work best on
darkened, charred, or stained surfaces, and can image through some
surface materials, but sees nothing through mud, clay, or silt. It
produced excellent results on palimpsests, cancellations and damnationes
memoriae, and on disintegrating surfaces where the ink has settled deep
into the fibres. It was least successful on surfaces that were partially
or entirely washed out. On abraded and uneven surfaces the camera's long
depth of field elides differences in levels and aids reading by
eliminating all shadows and levelling so that all writing appears
well-defined as though on a single layer. Darkened surfaces tended to
respond best deep in the infra-red end of the wave-band (c.800-1000
nanometers), but not exclusively so: each papyrus and surface (and
sometimes parts of each) responds best (i.e. with maximum reflectivity,
contrast, and definition, so that background noise is eliminated) at a
completely different point (which must be located) in the spectrum,
including some in the ultra-violet range. Surprisingly, in one trial the
process successfully imaged through painted gesso, revealing a
previously unknown document (report to a strategos) on the papyrus
cartonage surface underneath.

The London press got wind of this (the unrolled Herculaneum papyrus of
Epicurus' Peri physeos in the British Library is being done this week)
and reported enthusiastically, if selectively. No mention, for example,
was made of the success on the Bodleian Herculaneum papyrus (P.Herc.
118), now thereby revealed to be a Peri Epikourou or at any rate a
pre-Philodemean history of the school. The article certainly should not
have said (if it did) that all the papyri had been discovered yesterday,
only that we made significant (and sufficiently exciting) advances in
reading and confirmation of identifications with some, the same with
some other pieces, while still others were identified for the first
time, some standard classical authors, as usual, while others remain
complete mysteries. Readings from some identified from earlier
multi-spectral trials since 2002 were refined. The Oxyrhynchus texts
will be published in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, beginning with the next
volume (LXIX), still scheduled for publication next month. An article on
the technical aspects is planned for Scientific American.

I am happy to answer questions off-list.
Dirk Obbink



Best wishes
Wieland
<><
------------------------
Wieland Willker, Bremen, Germany
mailto:willker@...
http://www.uni-bremen.de/~wie/
Textcritical commentary:
http://www.uni-bremen.de/~wie/TCG/index.html