Ancient Codex Rendered Legible Through X-Ray Scanning

NEW YORK (AP) — An ancient Coptic codex written sometime between 400 and 600 A.D. and housed in a New York City library is now legible thanks to state-of-the-art X-ray scanning.

The severely scorched early book, or codex, has been owned by the Morgan Library and Museum in New York since 1962, but has remained unopened for fear of destroying it. The New York Times reports the brittle parchment was singed together sometime in the past, rendering it unreadable through normal means.

Computer scientist W. Brent Seals has developed software that models the surface of a contorted piece of parchment through X-ray data and then assigns letters to their correct positioning.

The scans were completed in December, and the museum team hopes to start producing readable pages later this month.

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Information from: The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com