Ancient Manuscript Of Archimedes Sells For $2 Million

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An ancient text by the Greek mathematical genius Archimedes sold for $2 million Thursday at Christie's, which won a last-minute court challenge over ownership to proceed with the auction. The rare 10th-century Byzantine Greek palimpsest manuscript is believed to be the oldest and most authentic copy of Archimedes' major works to survive, and contains transcriptions of his writing on geometry and physics.

The bidding started at $480,000 on the work, which had a pre-sale estimate of between $800,000 and $1.2 million, and rose rapidly to the price of $2 million and a final sale price of $2,202,500 after Christie's added its commission.

The sale went ahead after a court battle Wednesday night in which the Greek Orthodox Church, claiming ownership of the manuscript, failed to stop the auction. A federal judge ruled that Christie's had the right to sell the work on behalf of a French family that has had it for 75 years.

The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem sued Christie's and alleged that the 174 pages of text were stolen. The auction house argued that the current owners were descendants of a Frenchman who legally bought the volume in the 1920s.

Archimedes lived from 287-212 B.C.. Christie's said the manuscript was the only source for his treatise ``On The Method of Mathematical Theorems'' and the only known copy of the original Greek text of his work, ``On Floating Bodies.'' The manuscript also contains the text of his works ``On The Measurement of the Circle,'' ``On the Sphere and the Cylinder,'' ''On Spiral Lines,'' and ``On the Equilibrium of Planes.''