Scientists have claimed that they have found illustrations for ancient home remedies in a document that contained the first known copy of the gospels in Arabic.

Researchers from the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library in California explored the manuscript at Saint Catherine's monastery in Egypt, which is built beneath the mountain where God revealed the Ten Commandments to Moses.

They used imaging technology to reveal the images.

According to The Times, Michael Phelps from the Early Manuscripts Electronic Library in California and his colleagues took numerous pictures across the spectrum, "then used algorithms to remove the most recent text and highlight what was previously there".

Phelps told The Times: "Our chief imager came to me and said, 'There are flowers in the undertext'.

"My first thought was, did someone press flowers in it in the Middle Ages."

He discovered that the flowers were part of a recipe for treating scorpion stings.

The research also led to the discovery of documents from almost lost languages. The discoveries were celebrated at the headquarters of the Ministry of Antiquities in Cairo.

Phelps said: "In the 20th century new manuscripts were discovered in caves. In the 21st century, we will apply new techniques to manuscripts that have been under our noses. We will recover lost voices from our history."