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Lazarus Project

Multispectral imaging revealed remarkable detail about the rivers, mountains, and cities of southern Africa on Martellus’s map.

This fragment of text on the Martellus map, revealed by multispectral imaging, appears to describe a porcupine that lives in a cave near the northern coast of Asia and throws its spines at men and dogs who hunt them.

Invisible with regular light (left), a legend describing the panotii, a type of large-eared, part-human monster was revealed with multispectral imaging.

Multispectral imaging uses different wavelengths of light in different combinations to reveal otherwise invisible features. These images show the southern tip of India on Martellus’s map.

Much of the text on the 1491 map by Martellus map had faded to the point of illegibility (top), until researchers used modern imaging tools to uncover much of it (bottom).