Infrared brings scroll from Pompeii to light

Angela

Elite member
Messages
21,823
Reaction score
12,325
Points
113
Ethnic group
Italian
Who knows what could be in those 2000 papyri from Herculaneum. It's the largest ancient library found to date.


See:
https://www.archaeology.org/news/8057-191007-herculaneum-charred-scroll

"According to a Science Magazine report, short-wave infrared hyperspectral imaging has allowed a team of researchers led by classicist Graziano Ranocchia of the National Research Council in Rome to decipher text written on the reverse side of a charred papyrus scroll that had been unrolled and glued down on paperboard sometime after it was recovered in the eighteenth century from the ruins of Herculaneum. Like Pompeii, Herculaneum was covered in ash during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. The scroll contains a work about Greece's great thinkers known as the History of the Academy, which was copied on the papyrus several decades before the eruption of the volcano by the philosopher Philodemus or one of his scribes. Ranocchia said that in all, the team members were able to add 150 words to the 8,000 known words of Philodemus’ manuscript, and to correct translations of some words that had been misread. The technique could help researchers take a fresh look at the nearly 2,000 papyri recovered from Herculaneum. "
 
This discovery has a great potential. I hope some day, some of these discoveries will change completely the way we think about this era.
 

This thread has been viewed 4076 times.

Back
Top