Friday, December 20, 2013

Lost Scrolls in Herculaneum

Scroll from villa of the papyri, held in Paris
For centuries scholars have hunted for the lost literature of ancient Greece and Rome, missing works of Plato or Cicero, etc.  In Herculaneum in southern Italy, destroyed by a volcano in 79 AD, archaeologists have discovered an entire library of papyrus scrolls turned into solid lumps by high temperatures.  More than 400 burnt charcoal looking scrolls have largely defied efforts to be opened or read.  Some have been lost in the effort. Science has developed some promising techniques currently being experimented with in hopes of recovering some data.

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