Interior of Burnt Herculaneum Scroll Read For First Time

New submitter Solandri writes: When Mt. Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79, it destroyed a library of classical works in Herculaneum. The papyrus scrolls weren't incinerated, but were instead carbonized by the hot gases. The resulting black carbon cylinders have mostly withstood attempts to read their contents since their discovery. Earlier attempts to unfurl the scrolls yielded some readable material, but were judged too destructive. Researchers decided to wait for newer technology to be invented that could read the scrolls without unrolling them.

Now, a team led by Dr. Vito Mocella from the National Research Council's Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems (CNR-IMM) in Naples, Italy has managed to read individual letters inside one of the scrolls. Using a form of x-ray phase contrast tomography (abstract), they were able to ascertain the height difference (about 0.1mm) between the ink of the letters and the papyrus fibers which they sat upon. Due to the fibrous nature of the papyrus and the carbon-based ink, regular spectral and chemical analysis had thus far been unable to distinguish the ink from the paper. Further complicating the work, the scrolls are not in neat cylinders, but squashed and ruffled as the hot gases vaporized water in the papyrus and distorted the paper.

Comments

This is incredibly exciting

[Headw1nd]

Many people don't realize just how few classical texts actually have survived. The total volume of ancient Latin and Greek texts we have available to us is probably a little less than the volume of a middle school library. There are dozens of famous classical authors who we only know of from references by other authors, as none of their work survives. The chance to have new literature from that world, untouched by translation or transcription, is incredible.

Re:This is incredibly exciting

[PRMan]

The New Testament is very common with 5,000 Greek copies (and all within 400 years of the events, some within 100 years). But after that it drops off quickly. There are 643 copies of Homer's Iliad, but the closest to his writing is over 500 years. There are only 20 copies of Tacitus, but the closest is 1,000 years later. We have only 7 copies of Plato and 5 of Aristotle.

All that to say we might find something incredibly significant in this library. Something we have never had before or something that is a much older copy of something that we already have against which we can check accuracy.

Re:I wonder if the NSA has this technology

[AK Marc]

They just open the letter. They don't care if you know you are being watched. Everyone is being watched. The "problem" with the scrolls is that opening them destroys them.