Time = Photo Developer

Unlike the preservation of ordinary paintings or old books, the rescue of Archimedes Palimpsest was much more intricate and complex.  After Abigail carefully took the manuscript apart and kept each page separate for protection, the images hidden beneath the text and pictures of the prayer book were painstakingly revealed with the help of technology so that the scholars could study them.
All the toils of this process made me even more curious about the mystery behind the history:  Who was responsible for the miserable fate of the Archimedes Palimpsest?
Having read the Archimedes Palimpsest, I was reminded of another historical detective story, "the Daughter of Time."  Truth.  Truth is the daughter of time.
People are biased and easily misled.  Sometimes criminals in history were not convicted until generations later.  By the same token, some who were wrongly convicted in history only had their innocence proven with the test of time.  In 1999, William Noel, the curator of the Walters Arts Museum, traveled to Egypt, Turkey, and Israel to research on Archimedes and the history of the manuscript on parchment.  According to the historical documents found, it was at St. Sabas Monastery that the Archimedes' manuscript was covered by the text of the prayer book.  Williams said angrily, "St. Sabas was Archimedes' grave."
However, as Williams examined more historical documents, he came to the realization that, had it not been for the prayer book, Archimedes' manuscript would not have been treasured by the monastery and would have long been burned by some barbaric marauders.
It's like a "witness protection program" where a witness was given a new identity for his protection and survival.
The Archimedes Palimpsest survived under the guise of religion, a price to pay to escape from certain ruin.
Thank goodness for modern technology that can see through however many layers of prayer book text and drawings.  When Archimedes' genius is preserved in digital memory, the journey of its resurrection will have become a historical event.  Looking at the manuscript, it is hard not to think about the long 1,040 years of its existence.  Though it has only been in the Walters Arts Museum for 10 years, these 10 years were the critical period during which the truth was finally returned to the manuscript.
To me, this has also been a rich and fantastic history lesson!