Scientists have begun to read papyrus scrolls that nobody unfolded since they were charred during the eruption of Vesuvius in ’79. In doing so, they helped the X-ray phase-contrast imaging, which is used in medicine to study the structure of soft tissue. In this case, the scrolls are not deployed, and therefore not at risk of destruction.
Villa of the Papyri (Villa dei Papiri) in the vicinity of Herculaneum was discovered in 1752. According to the hypothesis of scientists, she might belong to Lucius Calpurnius Piso Tsezoniyu, father in law of Julius Caesar. The villa is located on a large private library. The hot gases during the eruption caused charring scrolls, and then they were buried for centuries beneath the ashes turned into tuff, a thickness of 20 – 25 meters.
Experts account for as many as 1,814 separate scrolls and fragments. More than 340 of them suffered charring, but remained entirely, 970 partially damaged and more than 500 are only pieces of papyrus. Thanks to Antonio Piaggio, who invented a special device to deploy the scrolls, the least damaged specimens were read. As a result, in the hands of scientists were previously unknown works of ancient literature, mostly in Greek. In 1802 – 1806 years of English clergyman and historian of antiquity John Hayter (John Hayter) unfolded and partially deciphered about 200 scrolls. By the middle of the XX century, only 585 scrolls were fully deployed, and 209 partially deployed. Of these, about 350 have been published.
Most of the surviving manuscripts are in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. In 1806, six scrolls were presented to Napoleon. In 1810, eighteen deployed papyrus was George IV. Four he gave the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and the rest are in the British Library. In 1969 he founded the International Centre for the Study of Herculaneum papyri (Centro Internazionale per lo Studio dei Papiri Ercolanesi – CISPE).
However, a large number of scrolls did not respond to the efforts of scientists. Come up with a method that would allow them to read without the risk of destroying, tried unsuccessfully to famous chemist Humphry Davy, who visited Italy in 1819. The first experience of using X-rays to read these scrolls held in 2009. It tried to do Sils Brent (Brent Seales) and his colleagues. They were able to get a picture of the internal structure of the scroll, but a clear picture was available only for small areas of papyrus. Besides ancient ink absorb X-rays as well as papyrus, so it was impossible to read the letters.
Now Mochella Vito (Vito Mocella) of the Naples Institute of microelectronics and microsystems and his colleagues used a different method – X-ray phase contrast imaging . It is based on how the different materials are broken, and do not absorb X-rays. Using this method, doctors examine patients soft tissues: brain, breast, lung. A team led by Vito Mochella used beams of coherent X-rays from a synchrotron radiation source of the third generation European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, located in Grenoble. This enabled them to distinguish the place of papyrus on which were written the letters, although the thickness differs from the rest of the scroll only a tenth of millimetra.Issledovateli worked with six “Napoleon” with recipes that are stored in France.
Samples were read letters (Mocella et al. Nature Communications)
At the moment, they were able to read the letters and individual words in the test rollout. Expert on Greek papyrology and author of works on scrolls gerkulanskim Delletr Daniel (Daniel Delattre) from the Paris Institute for Research and history texts (L’Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes) was able to analyze the shape of the letters seen and install handwriting scribe, already known for other manuscripts with Villa of the Papyri. Based on the already found texts, scroll, likely contains letters of the Greek philosopher Epicurean Philodemos Gadarskogo (about 110 BC. E – 40 – 35 BC. E). The last years of his life spent in Herculaneum Philodemos. Some researchers even suggest that Philodemos was a friend and client Calpurnius Piso, the owner of Villa of the Papyri. In any case, before the discovery of the scrolls Villa of the Papyri Philodemos was known only for its short poems included in “Palatine Anthology.” Of the scrolls, which scientists have been able to deploy and read product Philodemos contained in 44 scrolls.
In addition to the works of the Villa of the Papyri Philodemos were found and read the large fragments of the main work of Epicurus – the treatise “On Nature”. This work consisted of 37 books, but did not reach us. However, in the Villa of the Papyri were part of the 14 th, 15 th, 25 th and 28 th of books of this work. Perhaps the new method will detect and other parts of the most important works of Epicurus.
Explanation charred scrolls takes a long time, but researchers hope to speed up the process when it is created software that will automate the recognition of scanned text. Brent Seals, who works with a team of over Mochello reading scrolls, believes that after a while they will be able to handle large amounts of text.
Excavations in 1997 revealed that the Villa of the Papyri, probably can be found new scrolls . However, archaeological work was suspended. Bristol University professor Robert Fowler (Robert Fowler) believes that the new method of reading the charred scrolls can persuade the Italian authorities to authorize the continuation of archaeological excavations. At the moment, only 10% studied the villa. Cessation of work was due to lack of funds, as well as arguments that the scrolls found still will not be able to read. Now this argument is no longer, and, perhaps, the potential discovery of new sites will help you find literature and sources of funding for the work.
The results Mochello Vito and his colleagues described in a paper published in Nature Communications.
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