We're getting closer than ever to reading the mysterious Herculaneum scrolls

[Judi Lynn]

We're getting closer than ever to reading the mysterious Herculaneum scrolls

A quest 2,000 years in the making.

JOSH HRALA
25 MAR 2016

About 2,000 years ago, Mount Vesuvius erupted explosively and burned down a library full of ancient scrolls. Since researchers found the texts - known as the Herculaneum scrolls - back in the 18th century, scientists around the world have been trying to read them... without much success. But it may have just got a bit easier thanks to X-ray scans from the European Radiation Synchrotron Facility.

But to step back a second, here’s a brief summary of what the scrolls are and what scientists think they know about them. Back in 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried two towns: Pompeii, which gets most of the spotlight, and Herculaneum.

Inside a library at Herculaneum were a bunch of hand-written, fragile papyrus scrolls that researchers think most likely contain works by Philodemus and Virgil - two extremely influential teachers, philosophers, and writers. In 1752, researchers found 1,800 of these charred, rolled scrolls and have since been trying to unlock their secrets, which has proven ridiculously difficult, since a strong breeze is enough to ruin them forever.

Now, according to a report from The Guardian, researchers from the European Radiation Synchrotron Facility, who are able to produce an X-ray beam "100 billion times brighter than anything used in a hospital", were able to look inside the charred scrolls without damaging them.

More:
http://www.sciencealert.com/we-re-getting-closer-than-ever-to-reading-the-mysterious-herculaneum-scrolls

[nxylas]

1. My theory

It's a time traveller's Rickroll, and the scrolls will contain the lyrics to Never Gonna Give You Up in Latin.

[Igel]

2. I imagine that soon it'll be thrown over to data processing folk.

Once they can produce a sufficiently high-res 3D image of a scroll at the requisite wavelengths, it'll be a matter of merging them and coming up with algorithms to make sure that they can "unroll" them digitally or at least trace the line of writing sequentially around what amounts to a wildly distorted cylinder.

I think I've read of this happening with some Dead Sea scroll lumps, but perhaps that was something they hoped to do. Long since tuned out of the Dead Sea Scroll dialog.

Last I've been tuned into anything like this was some analysis a while back of Novgorodian birchbark letters and the occasional palimpsest.