Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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It may require a particle accelerator, X-ray vision, and a highly toxic metal, but researchers believe they could soon be reading from the libraries of Herculaneum, an ancient Roman town destroyed by a volcano to the benefit of archaeology.
Scientists have discovered that ancient scholars in the town which, along with its more-famous neighbor, Pompeii, was destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius used a lead-based paint, which they may be able to read using X-ray technology, Sonia van Gilder Cooke wrote for the New Scientist.
“This really opens up the possibility of being able to read these scrolls,” Graham Davis, a reader for 3D X-ray imaging at Queen Mary University of London, told New Scientist. “If this is typical of this scroll or other scrolls, then that is very good news.”
Archaeologists found about 800 ancient papyrus scrolls when they began digging through a private library, dubbed the "Villa of the Papyri," in Herculaneum in 1752, but 200 remain too delicate even to open. Discovering lead among the ink's components surprised physicist Vito Mocella of the Italian National Research Council and his colleagues, who published their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The libraries of Herculaneum: Not quite destroyed by Mt. Vesuvius?
This really is cool.
Scientists have discovered that ancient scholars in the town which, along with its more-famous neighbor, Pompeii, was destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius used a lead-based paint, which they may be able to read using X-ray technology, Sonia van Gilder Cooke wrote for the New Scientist.
“This really opens up the possibility of being able to read these scrolls,” Graham Davis, a reader for 3D X-ray imaging at Queen Mary University of London, told New Scientist. “If this is typical of this scroll or other scrolls, then that is very good news.”
Archaeologists found about 800 ancient papyrus scrolls when they began digging through a private library, dubbed the "Villa of the Papyri," in Herculaneum in 1752, but 200 remain too delicate even to open. Discovering lead among the ink's components surprised physicist Vito Mocella of the Italian National Research Council and his colleagues, who published their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The libraries of Herculaneum: Not quite destroyed by Mt. Vesuvius?
This really is cool.
