Modeling and visualizing palimpsests with IIIF Presentation API 3.0

Palimpsests are multi-layered manuscripts made from reused parchment, where the original text has been erased and overwritten with a new one. While advanced imaging has transformed the recovery possibilities of these erased layers, navigating their digital facsimiles is often limited to linear “galleries” that do not reflect the material and structural complexity of the physical object. The community lacks a reusable reference implementation for modeling reconstructed page sequences, spectral layering, and other reading complexities in palimpsests. We propose a comprehensive framework based on the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) Presentation API 3.0 to digitally restore and navigate complex manuscripts within a unified digital environment. Our approach uses IIIF Ranges with the "sequence" behavior to enable toggling between the current folio sequences and the reconstructed ones. The IIIF Choice element facilitates this navigation among spectral layers. We further employ Selectors to isolate or rotate specific undertext segments without altering the original image files.