Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
We have come full circle in photography. What was about "writing with light. Is now about the light recovering the writing lost!
Amazingly we have only 10% of the most famous ancient greek literary genius for our generation's pleasure! A magnificent Roman seaside villa contained a magnificent library packed with ancient scrolls. A blast of super hot gases from Vesuvious' eruption charred the scrolls in an instant and subsequently the ash petrified them!
Lost Libraries
During Hellenistic Period (323-31BC) there were several major libraries in the Mediterranean world, the greatest being the Library of Alexandria, established about 300BC - it was damaged in 48BC and probably destroyed in the reign of the Roman Emperor Aurelian (270-275AD)
Alexandria's closest rival was the library at Pergamum, in what is now Turkey. The Roman conquest of the kingdom of Macedon in 168 BC led to the seizure of its imperial library, which was taken to Rome.
During the Roman Empire, major libraries were built in Rome, often with separate buildings to hold Latin and Greek works - a catalogue of Rome's buildings from c. 350AD, 60 years before the city was burnt and looted by the Visigoths, lists 29 public libraries in the city, all now lost
A scroll, likely of Greek Literature as just a twisted charred lump of fragile remains
Now with the aid of spectral camera, in the infra red and also multispectral cameras reading in many wavelengths have turned the charred remind into 2 dimensional texts of amazing clarity. so the art of photography, writing with light, has now elucidating writing that is beyond imagination precious to humanity!
After unrolling, a feat in itself and multispetcral analysis with computer reconstruction
Read the entire story here!
and Maris Rusis, allow this time that this is real photography at its very best.
Asher
Amazingly we have only 10% of the most famous ancient greek literary genius for our generation's pleasure! A magnificent Roman seaside villa contained a magnificent library packed with ancient scrolls. A blast of super hot gases from Vesuvious' eruption charred the scrolls in an instant and subsequently the ash petrified them!
Lost Libraries
During Hellenistic Period (323-31BC) there were several major libraries in the Mediterranean world, the greatest being the Library of Alexandria, established about 300BC - it was damaged in 48BC and probably destroyed in the reign of the Roman Emperor Aurelian (270-275AD)
Alexandria's closest rival was the library at Pergamum, in what is now Turkey. The Roman conquest of the kingdom of Macedon in 168 BC led to the seizure of its imperial library, which was taken to Rome.
During the Roman Empire, major libraries were built in Rome, often with separate buildings to hold Latin and Greek works - a catalogue of Rome's buildings from c. 350AD, 60 years before the city was burnt and looted by the Visigoths, lists 29 public libraries in the city, all now lost
A scroll, likely of Greek Literature as just a twisted charred lump of fragile remains
Now with the aid of spectral camera, in the infra red and also multispectral cameras reading in many wavelengths have turned the charred remind into 2 dimensional texts of amazing clarity. so the art of photography, writing with light, has now elucidating writing that is beyond imagination precious to humanity!
After unrolling, a feat in itself and multispetcral analysis with computer reconstruction
Read the entire story here!
and Maris Rusis, allow this time that this is real photography at its very best.
Asher