Apocalypto- Revealing lost text with XMT

“Can brute-force high-contrast tomography techniques and image processing techniques retrieve textual content from damaged heritage materials?” The Dental Institute at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) is the leading centre for very high contrast X-Ray Microtomography imaging. The Apocalypto Project is our collaboration with the heritage community and experts in Computer Vision systems in the Computer Science Department at Cardiff University. This collaboration has developed techniques and a workflow that allows us to reveal textual content from moisture-damaged parchment rolls. This article will also present some initial results from burned and heat shrunken parchment rolls, an insect damaged Mamluk cap and a birch bark roll. 1