The diversity and condition of the materials posed particular challenges for the team. ‘In my ten years at the CSMC, this was an absolutely unique experience. Normally, I only work on one or two manuscripts per trip. Now there were many, and they were completely different’, says Shevchuk. ‘We had to constantly adapt the MSI camera to new objects. Sometimes it was very bright, highly reflective paper; sometimes dark and wavy parchment, so all the settings had to be changed. Such a conversion can take two to three hours.’

The project was also closely embedded in an international network. On site, Huskin and Shevchuk worked with Gilles Kagan from the Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes (IHRT) and Owen Milewski (CNRS, ERC project ‘PALAI’). In addition, Shevchuk presented current CSMC research in a lecture at the IHRT, particularly on Manichaean papyri and the use of artificial intelligence in manuscript analysis.

In total, around four terabytes of image data were generated during the stay. These will be further processed in Hamburg in the autumn in a two-week processing session together with the BnF photographers. In the longer term, a joint best-practice protocol for MSI is also planned, to be developed in cooperation between the CSMC, CNRS, and the BnF by the end of the year.