A Conservator's Hands
When the manuscript arrived at the Walters Art Museum, it was in such terrible shape that the pages could not be turned.  The pages were so fragile that they threatened to crumble at the slightest touch.  Some of the pages were glued together and to separate them would be harder than separating Siamese twins.
At this stage, only a conservator could touch it, and her first mission was to "deconstruct" the manuscript, because this was the only way to make it possible for scientists to "read" Archimedes' writing.
Abigail Quandt once repaired famous manuscripts of the Middle Ages such as the Dead Sea Scroll (the oldest Old Testament of the Bible in Hebrew) and The Hours of Jeanne D'Evreux by Jeanne D'Everux, the third wife of Charles the Fourth of France).  In the video, she had a pair of clean straight hands that were not rough nor delicate; the kind of hands that made people feel safe.
Abigail was so careful that she spent months just observing the manuscript.  Then she enlisted the help of the Canadian Cultural Preservation Center to give the manuscript a complete examination because she needed to know what chemicals were present on the pages and the spine before she could determine how to take it apart.
This examination alone took eleven months!
Even science could not speed up the rebirth of an artifact.  Armed with the analysis from Canada, Abigail started the painstaking work of deconstructing the manuscript like a surgeon, though I doubt any surgeon would have her patience, for it took her four years to complete the task, averaging 12 days per page!
Of course Abigail had other projects to work on, but she undoubtedly dedicated a major part of these several years to the Archimedes' manuscript.  Compared to those investment bankers who built an empire with their financial gains then lost it all in the last 10 years, how do we calculate the risk and return on investment when someone invested her life?  How do we quantify the value of a person's life?
It suddenly occurred to me - shouldn't a conservator buy insurance for her hands?
(to be continued)