With the modern technique of multispectral imaging, special scientists who research the palimpsests of the library of Saint Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai desert discovered rare prescriptions of the “Father of Medicine.”
It was already known that this was an extremely important manuscript. The parchment, found in the world’s oldest library, well preserved for more than 1,200 years, thanks to the dry and steady climate of the Sinai desert, contained the first known copy of the Gospels in Arabic.
Special scientists, investigating parchments in the library of Saint Catherine of Sinai, used the technology of multispectral imaging to reveal what was hiding underneath the Gospel, which was written above some other ancient text.
In the ancient parchment under the Gospel written in Arabic, Greek words and the sketch of a plant [EMEL] were revealed.
Built under the mountain, where God revealed the Ten Commandments to Moses, Saint Catherine’s Monastery possesses a library where thousands of palimpsest manuscripts are kept since its foundation in the 6th century.
Throughout its long history the Sinai monastery has never been destroyed or abandoned, and today a small group of monks continue faithfully its old-fashioned lifestyle.
Archbishop Damianos of Mt. Sinai further stated: “The recovery of these ancient medical texts underlines the fact that the library of the Holy Monastery can teach us not only the history of Christianity in the Middle East but also the history of science.”
