人妻少妇专区

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Pack lightly, seasoned travelers advise. Take only what you need.

And Gregory Heyworth, an associate professor of English, does. A scant collection of clothes makes it into his bags when he flies to Italy, or the former Soviet republic of Georgia, or Wales. He pares his wardrobe to make room for the camera, panels of LEDs, computers, and other pieces of equipment that fill his luggage instead.

Trained as a scholar of medieval literature, Heyworth has become鈥攊n a term he coined鈥攁 鈥渢extual scientist.鈥� He recovers the words and images of cultural heritage objects that have been lost, through damage and erasure, to time.

He calls it 鈥渇orensic science applied to literature and to history.鈥� And while he paints the effort in swashbuckling terms鈥攈e has described himself as 鈥渁n adventurer in an undiscovered country, searching for the hidden text鈥濃�攁 somber urgency drives him. At a bare minimum, he estimates, there are 60,000 manuscripts from before 1500 in Europe alone that are damaged to the point of illegibility.

Some of the objects are faded; some, charred; some, moldy and crumbling. Some surely hold secrets that could change our sense of history. And time is not their friend.

To rescue them, Heyworth and his collaborators on the aptly named Lazarus Project created the contents of his airline baggage: a transportable multispectral imaging lab鈥攖he only one in the world鈥攖hat uses different wavelengths of light to photograph cultural artifacts. The team analyzes the images, digitally salvaging ancient manuscripts, maps, and other texts too delicate and precious to transport. They make the undecipherable, and even the invisible, legible again.

To do so requires a broad amalgamation of expertise鈥攁nd much of that breadth is represented by Heyworth himself.

Michael Phelps, director of the California-based Early Manuscripts Electronic Library (EMEL) and a frequent collaborator, calls him an 鈥渆ngine of innovation.鈥� Textual science, he says, couldn鈥檛 exist

without someone like Heyworth. 鈥淚t needs someone who is a humanities person, who knows the manuscripts and the collections. And someone who has some chops in hard science, too鈥攕omeone who brings both sides of the equation together.鈥�

The work requires expertise in paleography鈥攖he study of old handwriting鈥攁nd codicology, the study of books and manuscripts as material objects and cultural artifacts. It demands proficiency in imaging science and computer science. It calls for knowledge of chemistry, to understand the makeup of inks and their interactions with the surfaces on which they were used.

The cadre of people able to carry out the projects is vanishingly small鈥攚hich is why Heyworth sees one of his most important tasks as developing a textual science curriculum to train students.

鈥淭here are only about 20 people in the world now who do this,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd that has to change.鈥�

Heyworth joined the University in July, from the University of Mississippi. Henry Kautz, the Robin and Tim Wentworth Director of the Goergen Institute for Data Science and a professor of computer science, spotted him when he led a search committee seeking to hire faculty whose nontraditional research could bridge different disciplines. 鈥淚t鈥檚 state-of-the-art work,鈥� says Kautz.

Heyworth arrived at his specialty 鈥渂y necessity,鈥� he says. After earning a doctorate in comparative literature at Princeton, he spent five summers in Dresden, Germany, scrutinizing 鈥淟es Esch茅z d鈥橝mours,鈥� (鈥淭he Chess of Love鈥�), an anonymous, 14th-century poem that鈥檚 one of the longest verse works in French. Only a handful of manuscript copies ever existed, and just two survived: a fragmentary copy in Venice and a nearly complete copy, lacking only the ending, in Dresden. But that manuscript was virtually destroyed by water during Allied bombing in 1945, 鈥渓eaving the manuscript鈥檚 once pristine parchment a faded and murky Rorschach of figures on blotting paper,鈥� Heyworth has written.

Though scholars considered the poem to be effectively lost, Heyworth refused to give up. For those five years, he used ultraviolet lamps to try to recover traces of the writing, a long-established salvage technique first developed by a German monk in 1914. He followed the method as far as it would take him鈥攂ut it wasn鈥檛 far enough.

Determined to find a way forward, he began to look online for ideas. And that鈥檚 how he discovered the work of Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) imaging science professor Roger Easton, who had led a team in using multispectral imaging to recover works by Greek mathematician Archimedes from a 12th-century palimpsest.

Palimpsests are essentially recycled pieces of treated animal hide, better known as parchment. Parchment was a precious commodity, and so ancient and medieval scribes would reuse it, literally scraping away old writing to create a blank surface for new text.

In the case of the Archimedes palimpsest, seven of his treatises鈥�10th-century transcriptions of his work from the 3rd century BCE鈥攈ad been erased and the pages rebound and written over as a prayer book by monks. An anonymous buyer purchased the piece鈥攃alled a codex, an ancient manuscript assembled in book form鈥攁t auction at Christie鈥檚 New York in 1998. He entrusted it to what is now the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore for conservation, an effort that spanned a decade. Imaging and analysis by Easton, physicist and imaging specialist William Christens-Barry, and Keith Knox 鈥�70, 鈥�75 (PhD), formerly an imaging scientist at Xerox, was fundamental to an effort that yielded about 80 percent of the original text and revealed a previously unknown work by Aristotle.

鈥淭he flash of a camera and a clever algorithm . . . can transform a page,鈥� wrote Walters curator William Noel of the process, in a book he coauthored with Reviel Netz, The Archimedes Codex: How a Medieval Prayer Book Is Revealing the True Genius of Antiquity鈥檚 Greatest Scientist (Da Capo Press, 2007).

Here, Heyworth realized, was the key that might open the 鈥淓sch茅z鈥� manuscript.

He contacted Easton in the summer of 2009 with a plan. Heyworth applied for鈥攁nd received鈥攁 grant from the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training to build a transportable version of the multispectral imaging lab that Easton鈥檚 team had used in Baltimore. Easton, imaging entrepreneur Ken Boydston鈥攚hose company, Megavision, created the camera Easton used鈥攁nd Michael Phelps worked with Heyworth to create the system.

What the naked eye can detect is only a fraction of what manuscripts鈥攐r maps, or globes, or inscribed stones鈥攃ontain. But multispectral imaging can expose what otherwise lies hidden.

The method developed by the Archimedes group relied on remote sensing technology invented by military and environmental scientists to photograph terrain using 12 light frequencies between ultraviolet and infrared light. The innovation of Easton鈥檚 team was using light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, as the light source. Cool LEDs don鈥檛 subject manuscripts to the damaging heat that broadband light does, and they bring greater efficiency, exposing pages only to the desired form of energy. The method 鈥減roduces much better results and does no damage to the object,鈥� says Heyworth.

He met Easton for the first time in 2010, when Easton and Boydston delivered the system to him at the airport in Dresden. Their efforts in deciphering the damaged 鈥淓sch茅z鈥� manuscript were successful. About 96 percent of the original text was recovered; Heyworth and coeditor Daniel O鈥橲ullivan have published the first volume of a two-volume critical edition of the poem, with the second soon forthcoming. 鈥淟es Esch茅z d鈥橝mours鈥� is now the last known major medieval allegory to have found its way into print for modern readers.

The project was the start of an enduring collaboration between Heyworth and Easton, both through the Lazarus Project and now through the freshly formed group RCHIVE, which takes advantage of their new physical proximity and draws together faculty and students at the University and at RIT. Under the auspices of the Lazarus Project, Heyworth, Easton, and a team of colleagues and students have already worked with such important manuscripts as the Vercelli Book, the oldest book of English; the Black Book of Carmarthen, the oldest book in Welsh; and some of the earliest Gospels, now held in Tbilisi, Georgia.

鈥淕reg has much better blue-sky vision than I do,鈥� says Easton of Heyworth, 鈥渢o the point where I have to say, 鈥榥o, we have to focus on what we do well, and get somebody else to do that. We have enough of our own work to do.鈥� But it doesn鈥檛 affect him. He wants to do it anyway.鈥�

A covered bridge in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, beckons鈥攊t holds graffiti that may be related to a visit to the area from Abraham Lincoln. The Dresden collection that holds the 鈥淓sch茅z鈥� manuscript is also a vast treasure house of baroque music鈥攎uch of which has been in some way damaged. Heyworth did a pilot project there last summer, imaging music by composers such as Antonio Vivaldi, Georg Philipp Telemann, and Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf. 鈥淭here are three unknown operas there, damaged, that we are recovering, and then symphonies by important composers of the time, like Johann David Heinichen.鈥� Now that he鈥檚 at Rochester, Heyworth hopes to collaborate with musicians at the Eastman School of Music to take the manuscripts from recovery to performance.

鈥淪ometimes when letters are erased, they leave a 鈥榝ootprint鈥� behind,鈥� he says. Even when the ink has only flaked away, there鈥檚 still a trace. The acid in the ink eats away at the parchment, creating a channel where the parchment is thinner. Lighting the manuscript from beneath allows the team鈥檚 camera to capture what was lost鈥攖he thinner channel transmits light better than the parchment that wasn鈥檛 written on, and lost words can shine out more brightly than their surroundings.

鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing back in time. That鈥檚 really what we do,鈥� says Heyworth. 鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing back before the final draft. I like to say that our job is to try to recover the first draft of history, before people started changing things. And you know how revealing that can be鈥攁ll the changes of mind, the attempts that are erased and started over again. That gives us huge insight into what the author or cartographer knew, understood, and aspired to.鈥� In that sense, the process can recover not only what was once on the page, but also the story behind its creation.

The transportability of the lab is crucial. Multispectral imaging systems are scattered around the world, at places like the Library of Congress, the British Library, and the Israel Antiquities Authority. But they don鈥檛 travel.

And most of the manuscripts in jeopardy are held by institutions that lack financial resources and that can鈥檛, for various reasons, send their objects to establishments with digital conservation equipment.

鈥淭ransportability was fundamental,鈥� says Timothy Leonardi, the head curator of the Archive and Capitulary Library of Vercelli in Italy. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not possible for us to bring our manuscripts outside the library.鈥� When Heyworth and his team visited, twice, to image and analyze items from the collection, they carried out all of their work in the library, using the base of an 11th-century tower, and a suite of rooms formerly used by Pope John Paul II, as their center of operations.

Easton describes the sight of Heyworth toting the lab to the project: 鈥淚 left Greg at a train station in Rome, and he had this little train of bags, tied together with a webbing, that he was pulling. He had the camera and the copy stand and the computers and the lights. And so it鈥檚 still not portable in a convenient sense. But you have to take it places. The manuscripts don鈥檛 leave where they are, and we wouldn鈥檛 want them to leave. We don鈥檛 even want to touch them.鈥�

The Lazarus Project is a not-for-profit organization that seeks to provide the team鈥檚 services at little or no cost to individual scholars and smaller institutions around the globe. It claims no ownership of the images and analysis produced, and diplomacy is central to its process.

Heyworth formed the Lazarus Project as a separate charitable group that only affiliates itself with the university at which he鈥檚 employed. That separation is important, he says, in addressing concerns about a university鈥檚 appropriation of the collections he works with. 鈥淲ith the Lazarus Project, we鈥檙e able to tell them, we don鈥檛 own your data. Not only do we not own it, we never want to own it. It needs to be published freely, openly鈥攁nd that鈥檚 what we鈥檒l do. In return for doing it for free, we will open up this to everyone.鈥�

The work is painstaking. It takes two days to set up and calibrate the system. Michael Phelps, Heyworth鈥檚 collaborator, ticks through some of the preparatory questions: 鈥淎re you dealing with flat pieces of paper or parchment? Can you just set them down on a copy stand underneath the camera? Are you dealing with a codex? If you鈥檙e dealing with a codex, is it intact? Is it broken? How fragile and brittle is it? How much can it be opened? Can it be opened 100 degrees? Or 90 degrees? Or 150 degrees? You have to carefully plan out how you鈥檙e going to handle the object.鈥�

The room is readied, the windows darkened with black aluminum foil or black rubberized cloth. Banks of lights are put in place to illuminate the pages from above and below.

And then the imaging begins, with a camera whose lens is made of quartz. There are fewer than a dozen such cameras in existence.

When Heyworth and the team began their work in Dresden, they took 12 images of each manuscript page. Now, depending on how fragile the object is鈥攁nd consequently, how efficiently it can be manipulated鈥攖hey can image between 30 and 40 pages a day, with 30 to 50 images of each page.

Analysis of the images usually begins on site, so that archivists and scholars can give immediate feedback. And despite the elaborate technology involved, some parts of the process rely on startlingly simple equipment鈥攍ike a pair of comfortable shoes.

鈥淲e capture data onto a very fast external hard drive,鈥� Phelps says. 鈥淎nd then we 鈥榮neaker-net鈥� it, walking down the hallway to another room where image processing is set up.鈥� Networking the computers that capture images to those that process them, by recombining photographs taken at different wavelengths, slows down the process too much. 鈥淪o we capture images for a certain number of hours, and then we walk them down the hall.鈥�

Heyworth was recruited to Rochester as part of the University鈥檚 data science initiative. 鈥淚n our projects, we generate an enormous amount of data, terabytes of data,鈥� he says. Data science鈥攅xtracting meaningful information from large-scale data鈥攊s one of the University鈥檚 top academic priorities for the next several years. The Goergen Institute for Data Science, headed by Henry Kautz, was formed in part to foster work that spans the entire University, linking鈥攊n combinations that vary by project鈥攊nquiry in science, medicine, the arts and humanities, social science, engineering, and business. To support such research and teaching, the University plans to hire new faculty in areas where data science plays a critical role.

The data on which Heyworth relies鈥攊mages, optics, chemical analysis, and the algorithms to extrapolate information from the data鈥攁llow him to move beyond the parameters of traditional literary scholarship to a version of archival work that wouldn鈥檛 be possible otherwise. At one level, that means recovering texts, like the 鈥淓sch茅z,鈥� that have seemed irretrievable. At another, it means engaging with the shadowy history of a document that is revealed when it鈥檚 subjected not only to the scholar鈥檚 probing eye but also to the equally potent gaze of cameras and computers.

Says Phelps, of the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library: 鈥淢anuscripts are extremely complex objects. They have complex histories, where they鈥檝e been damaged by fire or water, they鈥檝e been degraded by mold and the mandibles of insects, and sometimes they鈥檝e been intentionally effaced, either by painting over some of the text or by erasing text, in the case of a palimpsest. The chemistry of the inks is complicated and differs from manuscript to manuscript.鈥�

In the face of so many variables, the team鈥檚 approach has been to 鈥渢hrow the kitchen sink at each manuscript,鈥� he says, trying different modes of imaging鈥攊ncluding volumetric imaging, thermography, and X-ray fluorescence鈥攁nd different wavelengths of light. And imaging contributes to material analysis, too, allowing the researchers to identify inks and pigments.

鈥淲e don鈥檛 hunt and peck,鈥� Phelps says, searching through images to find the information worth processing. Instead they process massive quantities of data using statistics and mathematical algorithms. 鈥淕oing from 12 images to 50 per page is a big jump, and that adds time to a project and it adds data that you have to store and manage later,鈥� says Phelps.

Now one of Heyworth鈥檚 priorities is understanding why a particular technique works in a given situation, allowing the team to image and analyze objects more efficiently and effectively.

鈥淭his is where Greg鈥檚 move to Rochester is important,鈥� Phelps says. 鈥淲ith the 人妻少妇专区 and RIT within a few miles of each other, we have the opportunity for hard scientists and humanities people at both institutions to put their heads together and create solutions. Heretofore, most of the solutions have been fairly ad hoc.鈥�

Be that as it may, the solutions have worked well enough to elicit at times what Lazarus Project board member and cartographic historian Chet Van Duzer has termed a 鈥渟pectral gasp.鈥�

Van Duzer was part of the team from the Lazarus Project and EMEL who in 2014 imaged and analyzed the Martellus Map, a large鈥攆our by six-and-a-half feet鈥攈and-painted paper map of Eurasia and Africa by German cartographer Henricus Martellus, who created it in Italy around 1491. Scholars believe that Christopher Columbus may have consulted the map before his voyage to the New World.

Acquired by Yale鈥檚 Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in 1962, the map had hung, largely unnoticed, on a wall outside the library鈥檚 reading room. Its inks had degraded with age, darkening the map until it became virtually undecipherable.

鈥淚t looks like a desert,鈥� Heyworth says. 鈥淚t looks dull green for the ocean and Sahara Desert鈥揵rown for the rest, and there鈥檚 almost nothing that鈥檚 visible.鈥�

When librarians gathered to see the team鈥檚 before-and-after images, they let out a gasp, astonished to see for the first time what had been cloaked. There were places names all down the coast of Africa. For the first time, Japan was represented with a north-south orientation. The margins were decorated with descriptions of lands and people. The map鈥檚 darkly impenetrable legend could suddenly be read.

鈥淒etails all over this map are now fully legible,鈥� says Phelps. 鈥淚t鈥檚 mind-blowing.鈥�

His is a mind not easily blown. 鈥淚鈥檝e gotten sort of used to this, so I鈥檝e gotten cynical. I鈥檝e seen [the process at work] a thousand times, and you鈥檙e not going to be able to get me to gasp very often.鈥� But working in Vercelli with the Codex Vercellensis鈥攖hought to be the earliest manuscript of the Old Latin Gospels鈥攈e felt a chill. 鈥淭here are some pages where, if you鈥檙e holding the manuscript in your hands, you just don鈥檛 think there鈥檚 anything there. It鈥檚 too far deteriorated. There鈥檚 no technology other than a time machine that鈥檚 going to recover it. And then鈥攑ow! We see legible text.鈥�

But such recovery can only be carried out on anything approaching the needed scale if there are enough trained specialists. And that鈥檚 why Heyworth is driven to enlist students, undergraduates as well as graduate students, in the effort.

He began teaching at Rochester this spring, with two courses鈥擨mage, Text, and Technology, and Digital Imaging: Transforming Real into Virtual. The second draws undergraduates and graduate students, but the first is an introductory textual science course aimed, as it was at Mississippi, at second-semester sophomores, so that they鈥檙e ready by their senior year to carry out a major piece of work.

鈥淭hey鈥檒l have the technical skills to be able to pull it off,鈥� he says. 鈥淎nd they can present on it, or even publish on it, either individually or collectively.鈥� For undergraduates, he says, the projects provide 鈥渢he moment of transformation that one sees from a passive receiver of knowledge to a producer of knowledge.鈥�

He welcomes the interest of anyone whose enthusiasm for the quest might begin to match his own. He鈥檚 already working with students from computer scientist Henry Kautz鈥檚 lab to see how machine learning鈥攊n the form of computer-aided optical character recognition鈥攃ould be used one day to read rediscovered texts, moving through manuscripts more efficiently than individual scholars can. Students of optics professor Wayne Knox may collaborate with Heyworth to determine how the University鈥檚 collection of dime novels鈥攐ne of the world鈥檚 largest鈥攃an be accessed, given that many of the books can be opened only a few degrees.

And in a freewheeling assemblage almost unheard of in the fairly solitary world of humanities research, Heyworth spoke at Rush Rhees Library one afternoon last autumn to a room filled with students, faculty, and librarians from the University and RIT鈥攏ot hand-picked people but anyone interested in attending. He explained dimensions of the projects in which they could involve themselves. For example, in the late 15th century, scholars started using chemical reagents鈥攃hemicals used to 鈥渞evitalize鈥� texts for 10 seconds or a minute, after which time the chemicals would permanently stain the pages, obscuring the text even further. 鈥淎nyone with a background in this?鈥� Heyworth called out, on the hunt for chemists. 鈥淚 have recipes for reagents and medieval inks and would love to do some tests in a lab, to see if we can find ways to see through reagents.鈥�

鈥淲e鈥檙e going to attract people from communities that don鈥檛 talk to each other,鈥� says Easton, who is still amazed that his scientific work now brings him into regular contact with some of the world鈥檚 most eminent humanistic scholars. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 speak the same language. So that鈥檚 going to be a challenge,鈥� he says of the team鈥檚 plans.

But Heyworth has no doubts. 鈥淚 think in this new digital world, it鈥檚 absolutely necessary to integrate the sciences with the humanities,鈥� he says. 鈥淲ithout that we can鈥檛 have true innovation. We can鈥檛 move forward. I think we owe it to our students and to our next generation to train them in ways to work together, to do just this.鈥�

And Phelps is convinced that Heyworth and Easton鈥檚 proximity and the chance to bring together experts at Rochester and RIT in the service of preserving world cultural heritage will bring as-yet unimagined breakthroughs.

In humanities research that relies on technology, 鈥渨e鈥檙e always using derivative technologies. They were made for some other purpose, and we try to use them for humanities work,鈥� he says. 鈥淕reg鈥檚 move to Rochester, with the collaboration developing with RIT, brings a real opportunity for humanities people and the unique problems we face in preserving and restoring treasures of our culture. It鈥檚 an opportunity to have the problems of our fields in the humanities鈥攖he problems of historical research鈥攄rive technological development.鈥�

Whether it鈥檚 ancient manuscripts or 20th-century political ephemera, the world is filled with objects waiting to be read鈥攖o be rescued, before they crumble into dust, deteriorated beyond saving. And everyone has a stake in their preservation, says Phelps.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 see these projects as ivory-tower scholarly projects,鈥� he says. 鈥淥f course, they have a scholarly component, but this is the heritage of us all.鈥�

Says Heyworth: 鈥淲e have an obligation not only to try to make this technology available for free or for almost no cost鈥攂ut also to train students to do this, to expand our capacity.鈥�

Cultural heritage imaging is only in its infancy, and there is much to explore, he says. He calls what lies ahead 鈥渢he future of the past鈥濃�攁 bold and unfamiliar future.

鈥淚 predict that in the next 10 years,鈥� he says, 鈥渢extual science is going to revolutionize the kind of work that鈥檚 been going on in the humanities.鈥�