Researchers may soon be able to read papyrus scrolls from a villa destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, The New York Times reports. And they won't have to unroll the fragile antiquities to do it, either. X-rays allowed researchers from the Institute for Microelectronics and Microsystems in Naples, Italy to discover slight contrast between the paper and the ink.
about 300 scrolls are still intact
The villa where the scrolls were found was in Herculaneum, one of two towns destroyed. Herculaneum was barraged by very hot gas and ashes, while the other town, Pompeii, was buried in lava. The gasses in Herculaneum didn't burn the scrolls — but they did make the scrolls exceptionally fragile. The scrolls were carbonized...
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