Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

X-rays unlock secrets of ancient scrolls buried by Vesuvius volcano

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • X-rays unlock secrets of ancient scrolls buried by Vesuvius volcano

    Originally posted by Japan Times
    X-rays unlock secrets of ancient scrolls buried by Vesuvius volcano

    BERLIN – Scientists have succeeded in reading parts of an ancient scroll that was buried in a volcanic eruption almost 2,000 years ago, holding out the promise that the world’s oldest surviving library may one day reveal all of its secrets.

    The scroll is among hundreds retrieved from the remains of a lavish villa at Herculaneum, which along with Pompeii was one of several Roman towns that were destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79.

    Some of the texts from what is called the Villa of the Papyri have been deciphered since they were discovered in the 1750s. But many more remain a mystery to science because they were so badly damaged that unrolling the papyrus they were written on would have destroyed them completely.

    “The papyri were completely covered in blazing-hot volcanic material,” said Vito Mocella, a theoretical scientist at the Institute of Microelectronics and Microsystems (CNR) in Naples who led the latest project.

    Previous attempts to peer inside the scrolls failed to yield any readable texts because the ink used in ancient times was made from a mixture of charcoal and gum. This makes it indistinguishable from the burned papyrus.

    Mocella and his colleagues decided to try a method called X-ray phase contrast tomography that had previously been used to examine fossils without damaging them.

    Phase contrast tomography takes advantage of subtle differences in the way radiation — such as X-rays — passes through different substances, in this case papyrus and ink.

    Using lab time at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France, the researchers found they were able to decipher several letters, proving that the method could be used to read what’s hidden inside the scrolls.

    “Our goal was to show that the technique is sensitive to the writing,” said Mocella. In a further step, the scientists compared the handwriting to that of other texts, allowing them to conclude that it was likely the work of Philodemus, a poet and Epicurean philosopher who died about a century before the volcanic eruption.

    The next challenge will be to automate the laborious process of scanning the charred lumps of papyrus and deciphering the texts inside them, so that some 700 further scrolls stored in Naples can be read, Mocella said.

    Scholars studying the Herculaneum texts say the new technique, which was detailed in an article published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, may well mark a breakthrough for their efforts to unlock the ancient philosophical ideas hidden from view for almost two millennia.

    “It’s a philosophical library of Epicurean texts from a time when this philosophy influenced the most important classical Latin authors, such as Virgil, Horace and Cicero,” said Juergen Hammerstaedt, a professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Cologne, Germany, who was not involved in the project.

    “There needs to be much work before one can virtually unroll carbonized papyrus because one will have to develop a digital method that will allow us to follow the layers,” he said. “But in the 260 years of Herculaneum papyrology it is certainly a remarkable year.”
    http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/201.../#.VL6-BC6fuSo

    This could turn out to be amazing.

  • #2
    i wonder if any of the op-eds of the period contained concerns from local residents about all the recent rumbling
    To us, it is the BEAST.

    Comment


    • #3
      Very neat.

      And Sava, I'd wager the one who wrote it was burned as a heretic.
      I'm not conceited, conceit is a fault and I have no faults...

      Civ and WoW are my crack... just one... more... turn...

      Comment


      • #4
        for voicing an obvious complaint? what's heretical about that?
        To us, it is the BEAST.

        Comment


        • #5
          Because they're complaining about the gods doing something (shaking the ground).
          I'm not conceited, conceit is a fault and I have no faults...

          Civ and WoW are my crack... just one... more... turn...

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by kentonio View Post
            “The papyri were completely covered in blazing-hot volcanic material,”
            That's what she said.
            “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
            - John 13:34-35 (NRSV)

            Comment


            • #7
              I thought this was going to be another scientology thread.
              Any views I may express here are personal and certainly do not in any way reflect the views of my employer. Tis the rising of the moon..

              Look, I just don't anymore, okay?

              Comment


              • #8
                Socrates: "Good is That at which all things aim, If one knows what the good is, one will always do what is good." Brian: "Romanes eunt domus"
                GW 2013: "and juistin bieber is gay with me and we have 10 kids we live in u.s.a in the white house with obama"

                Comment


                • #9
                  they translated the last word of the scroll, "aargh"

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Did they find the ruins of the castle yet ?
                    "Ceterum censeo Ben esse expellendum."

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      they have to brave the traps at Petra first
                      To us, it is the BEAST.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        The african or the european traps ?
                        "Ceterum censeo Ben esse expellendum."

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          i think, technically, they're mideast traps
                          To us, it is the BEAST.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Aaarrhh!
                            "Ceterum censeo Ben esse expellendum."

                            Comment

                            Working...
                            X