megkips:

This is Codex Tchacos and how it looked upon it’s arrival to the lab that eventually restored it, located in Switzerland. 

This is why preservation is important.  Because texts can come into an archive looking like that and it can be almost impossible to restore.  As it is, there is an estimated 10-15% of the codex that has been forever lost due to poor handling (including being removed from the desert climate into city air, being stolen, two extended lengths of time in bank vaults and being put in someone’s refrigerator, among other things.)