BALTIMORE — “The Archimedes Palimpsest” could well be the title of a Robert Ludlum thriller, though its plot’s esoteric arcana might also be useful for Dan Brown in his next variation on “The Da Vinci Code.” It features a third-century B.C. Greek mathematician (Archimedes) known for his playful brilliance; his lost writings, discovered more than a hundred years ago in an Istanbul convent; and various episodes involving plunder, pilferage and puzzling forgeries. The saga includes a monastery in the Judaean desert, a Jewish book dealer trying to flee Paris as the Nazis closed in, a French freedom fighter and an anonymous billionaire collector.

At the center is an ancient volume, its parchment recycled into a 13th-century prayer book. And at the climax we see those old folios, charred at the edges and scarred by dripping wax from the candles of devout monks, being meticulously studied for 12 years by an international team using the most advanced imaging technologies of the 21st century. And what is found is more revelatory than had ever been expected.

The Archimedes Palimpsest has precisely this history. It really does begin with a 10th-century copy of Archimedes’ third-century B.C. writings. Three centuries later they were scraped off the parchment, which was reused — creating a “palimpsest.” And while there aren’t enough dead bodies or secret cabals to support a full-fledged thriller, there really is a sense of excitement in the account of the book’s history, restoration and meanings, at an exhibition at the Walters Art Museum here: “Lost and Found: The Secrets of Archimedes.”

Almost nothing about the tale is banal or ordinary. In a companion book, “The Archimedes Codex” (Da Capo), William Noel, the museum’s curator of manuscripts, describes how the saga was brought to its conclusion. In 1998, after reading about the Palimpsest’s sale at a Christie’s auction to an anonymous purchaser for $2 million, the museum’s director, Gary Vikan, suggested to Mr. Noel that he discover who bought it and whether it might be exhibited at the Walters.