High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Archimedes Palimpsest is a palimpsest (ancient overwritten manuscript) on parchment in the form of a codex (hand-written bound book, as opposed to a scroll). It originally was a 10th-century Byzantine copy of an otherwise unknown work of the ancient mathematician, physicist, and engineer Archimedes (c. 287 BC–c. 212 BC) of Syracuse and other authors, which was overwritten with a religious text. The manuscript currently belongs to an American private collector.