GoKawiil
Tech News
Scientists used advanced imaging and computational techniques to read the text of an ancient scroll that was carbonized nearly 2,000 years ago during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, without physically opening the fragile artifact. The breakthrough combined technical innovation, scientific experimentation, and collaboration across multiple disciplines to recover writing long assumed unrecoverable.
Researchers created replica papyrus scrolls, inscribed and burned them to mimic scrolls buried by the Vesuvius eruption in AD 79, then showed they could detect the ink by identifying trace lead within it using X-ray techniques. This approach helps overcome a longstanding problem in which carbon-based ink is nearly indistinguishable from the carbonized papyrus itself under standard CT scanning.
Scientists studying the carbonized Herculaneum scrolls have created an artificial scroll and charred it to mimic the effects of the Vesuvius eruption, aiming to test whether lead traces in ancient ink can help reveal hidden text. The experiment is meant to validate imaging techniques before they are applied to the fragile, irreplaceable originals.
Scientists built replica papyrus scrolls, charred them to mimic the Herculaneum manuscripts destroyed by Vesuvius, and used them to test a screening technique for detecting lead-based ink. The work, published in PLoS ONE, supports the Vesuvius Challenge's effort to combine digital unwrapping and machine learning to read the still-rolled, unreadable scrolls without physically opening them.