A mysterious text ... hidden in a prayer book

November 1, 2014

Today’s classic TED Talk

William Noel: Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes ... hidden in a prayer book

14:53 minutes · TEDxSummit

A 2,000-year-old manuscript that has been erased, cut up, written on and painted over ... that hides a secret book of ancient knowledge. It sounds like fiction, but as ancient books curator William Noel tells us, it's real. Hear the fascinating story behind the Archimedes palimpsest, a Byzantine prayer book containing previously unknown writings from ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes -- and others.

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