Jiang Shijin pulled the precision binocular headband magnifier over her eyes and hunched down within a few inches of the ancient text resting on a light board.Using a pair of hand tools, Jiang carefully inspected the sheet made from the papyrus plant, proceeding with the utmost care. After all, it most likely had not been handled in a century — nor read for thousands of years.The Papyrus Conservation Summer Seminar at the University of Michigan is the only one of its kind in the Americas, the university said. It is one of the few in the world designed to convey the best practices for conserving papyrus manuscripts, ancient texts written on rolls or sheets made from the papyrus plant.
Papyrus Conservation Summer Seminar instructor Marieka Kaye, left, inspects Mauro Castiello’s papyrus fragment at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on on Aug. 6.
Michigan’s Papyrology Collection covers texts and documents from 1000BC to 1000AD. No institution on this side of the world has more of them, the school said, giving the researchers access to a vast collection of ancient papyri. There are portions of the Homer epics, The Odyssey and The Iliad, writings by the philosopher Epicurus and the oldest-known copy of the Epistles of Paul.
