Scientists Use Lead to Expose Text in 2,000-Year-Old Vesuvius Scrolls
Updated
Updated · ScienceDaily · Sep 26
Scientists Use Lead to Expose Text in 2,000-Year-Old Vesuvius Scrolls
2 articles · Updated · ScienceDaily · Sep 26
Summary
Tiny amounts of lead in ancient-style ink made writing inside carbonized papyrus stand out in X-ray CT scans, offering a new way to read Herculaneum scrolls without unrolling them.
Tests on replica scrolls showed lead absorbed up to 25 times more X-rays than burned papyrus, and letters remained detectable at concentrations as low as 25 micrograms per square centimeter.
A handheld X-ray fluorescence scanner also identified lead in burned scrolls, giving researchers a cheap screening tool to find the best candidates among roughly 1,800 surviving Herculaneum scrolls and fragments.
The method could strengthen AI-based virtual unrolling efforts that have already decoded parts of several Vesuvius scrolls, where carbon ink on carbonized papyrus has produced only faint signals.