Herculaneum Scrolls

The Herculaneum Scrolls are a collection of hundreds of carbonized papyrus rolls discovered in the 18th century at a Roman villa in Italy. They were preserved when the intense heat of the 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius instantly baked them.

The scrolls mostly contain Greek philosophical texts, including a significant number of previously lost works by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus. They represent the only surviving library from the ancient classical world.

Because the papyri were carbonized into extremely fragile, blackened lumps, physically unrolling them typically destroyed the text. For centuries, researchers struggled to read the black ink against the black charred background of the delicate scrolls.

In recent years, researchers have used advanced non-invasive imaging techniques, such as X-ray phase-contrast tomography, to virtually unwrap the scrolls without touching them. In 2023, machine learning models even successfully deciphered entire words from the carbonized texts.