To read 2,000-year-old burned scrolls, scientists burn their own
Scientists are using X-ray tomography to read ancient, carbonized scrolls from Herculaneum by testing the process on modern replicas burned in a furnace. The study confirms that lead-based inks absorb X-rays significantly better than charred papyrus, allowing for virtual unrolling of the texts.
Why it matters
This research provides a non-destructive method to recover lost historical knowledge from fragile artifacts that were previously considered unreadable.
by Robert Sanders, University of California - Berkeley
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Add as preferred source The contemporary carbonized scroll created by Seiler and his team (top) is about 4.5 inches long. At bottom is a real scroll from the Herculaneum library as it is being scanned. Credit: Douglas Seiler and the EduceLab, Univ. of Kentucky Douglas Seiler painstakingly sourced papyrus and reed pens from Egypt and traditional lampblack ink from Japan, then paid some high school students to inscribe the papyrus with lines from Star Wars and the Bible and a quote from the '60s sci-fi TV show The Outer Limits.
Seiler, an affiliate of Berkeley SETI, then rolled up the papyrus, placed it in a container inside a high-temperature furnace and burned it to a crisp.
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