Scientists have cooked up a fake 2,000-year-old scroll and scorched it to test whether X-rays can read the lead-enriched ink inside, and the method appears to work. The team behind the research says the technique could finally open up the long-lost writings of ancient philosophers buried by Mount Vesuvius.
The scrolls in question come from Herculaneum, the ancient Roman town buried alongside Pompeii when Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79. The blast burned and charred thousands of papyrus scrolls stored in a villa, turning them into brittle, carbonized rolls that are almost impossible to read without destroying them. For centuries, the contents remained locked inside.
Now, a new study published Wednesday (Sept. 16) in the journal PLOS One suggests there is a way forward. Researchers created a modern scroll with lead-based ink, scorched it to mimic the charred condition, and scanned it with X-ray techniques and custom-built software. The result: they could read the text.
“It’s amazing what you can get electrons to do.”
The Charred Scroll Experiment
The team, led by Douglas Seiler, a research affiliate of the University of California, Berkeley, started with a simple idea. Some of the Herculaneum scrolls were written with ink containing lead, and that metal shows up in X-ray scans. The question was whether they could detect it reliably enough to read actual words.
So they built a fake scroll. They made it out of modern materials, wrote on it with lead-rich ink, and then heated it until it resembled the blackened papyri recovered from the ruins. The goal was to create a test case that matched the conditions of the real artifacts.
The first step was to confirm the ink. The researchers used X-ray fluorescence, a technique that identifies elements by how they respond to X-rays, to check that the scroll contained lead. They found it did, and at varying concentrations.
Then came the reading part. The team used X-ray tomography, which builds 3D images from X-ray data, combined with custom software, to re-read the text they had written. The method detected differences between the ink and the papyrus, even when the lead content was minimal.
Why Lead Matters
The key insight is that the papyri and the ink are both carbon-based, which makes them hard to distinguish using standard X-ray methods. But lead is a heavy metal, and it shows up distinctly in scans. By scanning for lead first, the researchers can target the ink and avoid the background noise.
The technique could help improve text-detection algorithms for ancient papyrus pages, according to the team. That matters because digital decoding of the scrolls has been limited by the difficulty of separating ink from papyrus.
The approach also offers a practical benefit. Because it relies on non-destructive scanning, it could be used on fragile artifacts without risking damage.
“This provides a low-risk method to develop algorithms without endangering the priceless artifacts,” the team wrote in the study.
What the Scrolls Contain
The Herculaneum scrolls are believed to come from a library owned by Julius Caesar’s father-in-law. The collection includes works by ancient philosophers, mostly Epicureans and Stoics. One section describes Plato’s final burial place.
Previous attempts to read the scrolls have relied on digital “unrolling” — using software to virtually flatten the rolled papyrus. Those efforts have revealed some text, but the new lead-focused method could extend further.
The team’s approach could give these ancient writings a “higher probability of being successfully read,” they wrote in the study.
The Team Behind the Research
Seiler is the lead researcher on the project. His co-authors include Jennifer LaManna, Matthew McOsker, Daniel Kreimer, Michael Daugherty and Jessica Dopke. The paper is titled “A model carbonized papyrus scroll opens a novel path to identifying readable scrolls of the Herculaneum Library.”
The research was published online Wednesday.
How the Technique Works
The method involves several steps:
- Use X-ray fluorescence to scan for lead in the papyrus
- Confirm that the ink contains lead
- Apply X-ray tomography with custom software to read the text
- Detect differences between ink and papyrus
Each step builds on the last, starting with the presence of lead and ending with readable words.
What Happens Next
The immediate next step is to apply the method to the real scrolls. The team’s technique requires scanning for lead first, then using the X-ray tomography approach to read the text. Whether it works on the originals depends on the condition of the papyri and the distribution of lead in the ink.
The broader hope is that the technique could unlock a trove of philosophical writings that have been unreadable for centuries. The Epicurean and Stoic texts offer a window into ancient thought, and the Plato passage adds historical context to the philosopher’s life.
The method is not a silver bullet. It cannot read every word on every scroll, and it depends on lead being present. But it offers a path where none existed before.
The team’s approach is a clever adaptation of existing technology. Rather than trying to read through carbon, they read through lead. It is a small shift in focus, but it changes everything.
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