{"id":3786,"date":"2019-05-14T17:07:30","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T17:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www2.cs.uky.edu\/dri\/?page_id=3786"},"modified":"2025-06-24T12:14:49","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T16:14:49","slug":"herculaneum-papyrus-scrolls","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www2.cs.uky.edu\/dri\/herculaneum-papyrus-scrolls\/","title":{"rendered":"Herculaneum Papyrus Scrolls"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Herculaneum Papyrus Scrolls<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>[vc_single_image image=”2182″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

The Herculaneum Papyri<\/strong> are among the most iconic \u2014 and inaccessible \u2014 items in the \u201cinvisible library\u201d of irreparably damaged manuscripts. Buried and carbonized into chunks of charcoal by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE<\/strong>, the approximately 1,100 papyrus rolls offer us a unique window into the classical world. The collection was excavated from the ancient city of Herculaneum in the late 18th century. It was found in a luxurious home believed to belong to the family of Julius Caesar\u2019s father-in-law. Known as the Villa dei Papyri<\/strong>, this site produced the only large-scale library to have survived from Greco-Roman antiquity and the only classical one to have been found in situ. Unfortunately, the contents of this highly unique and valuable library remain largely unknown to this day.<\/p>\n

Full article: Smithsonian Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

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Opened Fragments<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>[vc_row_inner rt_row_style=”global-style” rt_row_borders=”” rt_row_paddings=”true” rt_bg_effect=”classic” rt_bg_image_repeat=”repeat” rt_bg_size=”cover” rt_bg_position=”right top” rt_bg_attachment=”scroll” rt_bg_video_format=”self-hosted”][vc_column_inner rt_wrp_col_paddings=”false” rt_border_top=”” rt_border_bottom=”” rt_border_left=”” rt_border_right=”” rt_border_top_mobile=”” rt_border_bottom_mobile=”” rt_border_left_mobile=”” rt_border_right_mobile=”” rt_bg_image_repeat=”repeat” rt_bg_size=”auto auto” rt_bg_position=”right top” rt_bg_attachment=”scroll”][vc_single_image image=”3822″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

Since the scrolls\u2019 discovery<\/strong>, people have tried various physical efforts to ferret out their contents. The results were largely disastrous. The most successful attempts were made in the 19th century, when about 300 of them were peeled apart by machine<\/strong>. This endeavor resulted in fragmented, layered sheets of brittle papyrus with visible, but largely illegible, writing on the black-as-charcoal surface.<\/p>\n

These fragments are uneven and warped<\/strong>, which obscures and distorts the text even further. In addition, it\u2019s practically impossible to tell where one layer of a papyrus wrap ends and another begins. This creates a jumbled mass of letters and words that is difficult to unscramble and understand. Finally, the top layers can hide three, four, or five \u2014 no one really knows how many \u2014 underlying sheets of writing. Thus, a non-invasive method for extracting the hidden text is needed.<\/p>\n

Painstaking efforts to piece together meaning from these open fragments have resulted in limited success. \u00a0Papyrologists have identified some texts as important works by Epicurus and his followers, including the poet and philosopher Philodemus of Gadara (see Oxford Bibliographies<\/a>), and a recent laboriously analyzed papyrus turned out to be a Latin text by Seneca the Elder<\/a>. In 2008 the Institut de France granted Dr. Seales and his team permission to study a fragment in their collection. The investigation led to the discovery of lead and other trace elements in the ink and represented the first ever instance of reported heavy metals in Herculaneum writings. \u00a0The complete results were published in 2009 in the proceedings of the Academy\u2019s annual program Lire Sans D\u00e9truire les Papyrus Carbonis\u00e9s d\u2019Herculanum<\/i><\/a>.<\/i> Although the quantities were very small, the presence of metal-based ink<\/strong>, a surprising discovery that Dr. Seales was first to report, suggested that imaging methods based on absorption, such as micro-CT scans, could produce contrast at the site of the writing. \u00a0As a result of the knowledge gained from the fragment study, the Institut de France granted Dr. Seales permission to scan two intact Herculaneum scrolls on site using a micro-CT machine<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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Digital Restoration of PHerc.118<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>[vc_single_image image=”3824″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1750778596047{padding-bottom: 40px !important;}”]<\/p>\n

One of the intact scrolls<\/strong> unpeeled by machine in the 19th century is known as PHerc.118<\/strong> and resides at the Bodleian library at Oxford University. The physical unfurling of the scroll essentially shredded the document into a set of 12 \u201cpezzos\u201d (Italian for \u201cpieces\u201d) that were in turn made up of several smaller fragments. Over the years, various efforts were made to create a visually accessible facsimile of PHerc.118, but the result was an image record as fragmentary as the scroll itself. From 19th-century hand-drawn renderings made by artists when the scroll was first opened (called disegni<\/i>), to analog film photographs taken in the late 1990s, to digital multispectral images captured in 2005, every venture created yet another version of each pezzo, without any link or reference to prior images. While advances in technology made some of the text clearer with every iteration, each image collection nonetheless posed its own set of problems; and there was no method to view the images as a composite whole so that analysis and understanding of the text could be improved. In addition, these images were still two-dimensional, which prevented scholars from being able to see all of the surface layers, ridges, holes, and contours that, although they represent deformations, can provide clues for navigating the landscape of the text on fragmented, torn papyrus.<\/p>\n

UKNow article http:\/\/uknow.uky.edu\/student-and-academic-life\/undergrad-team-helping-seales-unlock-ancient-secrets<\/a>[\/vc_column_text]\r\n\t\t\t\t