Assistant Professor Paul Dilley, who holds a joint appointment in the Departments of Religious Studies and Classics, used funding from the University of Iowa's Arts and Humanities Initiative, or AHI, to tackle the challenge of exploring an ancient Egyptian codex.

The New York Times picked up the story and discusses Dilley's work with W. Brent Seales, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky.

Dilley (PhD Yale, 2008) came to the UI in 2011 as Assistant Professor of Ancient Mediterranean Religions, and is a member of the Public Humanities in a Digital World initiative. He is a specialist in the religions of the Mediterranean world and Iran, from the Hellenistic period to early Islam. He is especially interested in the development of early Christianity within the various cultures of the Graeco-Roman world, including Egypt and Syria; as well as the reception of the classical tradition in these diverse areas.  His book, "Monasteries and the Care of Souls in Late Antique Christianity: Cognition and Discipline," published by Cambridge University Press in August 2017, explores the innovative practices for the training of thoughts and emotion, both individual and group, developed within early Christian ascetic movements, from the perspective of cognitive anthropology. He has also published various articles in journals and peer-reviewed collections on ancient asceticism and monasticism, the development of orthodoxy and heresy, apocryphal literature, and the canon.