NAPLES, Italy, Jan. 21 (UPI) — One could be forgiven for mistaking the torched scrolls of Herculaneum for a stray piece of charcoal. At first glance, these blackened, rolled-up pieces of ancient papyrus appear much better suited for searing steaks than reading pleasure.
But read they will be, thanks to a new technique developed by researchers at the National Research Council’s Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems. The illuminating new strategy utilizes laser technology, breathing linguistic life back into the log of burnt paper that dates to 79 CE.
Herculaneum was an ancient vacation town — often called the “other Pompeii” — that was destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. It’s the home of the only surviving classical library, though most of its holdings have been rendered unreadable by the blistering heat of volcanic gasses.
Excavated 260 years ago, scientists have spent the last two-plus centuries trying to read the library’s contents without destroying them. Bits and fragments of scrolls have been successfully deciphered in the past, but even the most delicate attempts to unroll the charred scrolls have resulted in considerable damage.
The new technique, called X-ray phase contrast tomography — a technology used mostly in medicine to analyze soft tissue — may allow scientists to access the Greek and Latin hidden within the Herculaneum scrolls. By measuring the way X-rays are distorted as they pass through the insides of the rolled scroll, scientists can reveal the lettered details.
In other words, the raised ink affects or refracts the laser X-rays through the scroll. Scientists can measure this refraction and decipher the scrolls’ contents.
“What we see is that the ink, which was essentially carbon based, is not very different from the carbonized papyrus,” Dr. Vito Mocella, the inventor of the new technique, told BBC News. “So the letters are there in relief, because the ink is still on the top.”
“This attempt opens up new opportunities to read many Herculaneum papyri, which are still rolled up, thus enhancing our knowledge of ancient Greek literature and philosophy,” Mocella and his colleagues wrote in a new study detailing the technique.
There’s still a ways to go before scientists will be able to sit down and read full passages from the Herculaneum library, but Mocella believes the new technique can be perfected.
“If the technology is perfected, it will be a real leap forward,” Richard Janko, a classical scholar who has translated some of Herculaneum’s legible scrolls, told The New York Times.
The new X-ray phase contrast technique is detailed in the latest issue of the journal Nature Communications.
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