Reading Ancient Scrolls with Modern Technology

Getty Art + Ideas

“The idea is that you put the scroll in the machine and it does a pirouette. And as it turns around, the x-rays see what’s inside the scroll from every possible angle, 360 degrees, all the way around. And we can invert that and recover a complete representation of what’s inside, in three dimensions.”

In 1750 well diggers discovered a villa near the ancient town of Herculaneum that had been buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Among the treasures pulled from the villa were more than 1,000 papyrus scrolls that had been turned to carbon by the volcano. Over the centuries since their discovery, many have tried to open and read these papyri in the hopes of discovering great lost works of antiquity, but they damaged these scrolls in the process. However, with modern imaging technology and artificial intelligence, it may now be possible to read these papyri without ever opening them.

In this episode, computer scientist Brent Seales and Getty antiquities curator Ken Lapatin discuss the history of these scrolls, past approaches to opening them, and the exciting opportunities presented by “virtual unwrapping.”

For images, transcripts, and more, visit https://blogs.getty.edu/iris/podcast-reading-ancient-scrolls-with-modern-technology/ or getty.edu/podcasts.

To buy the related book visit https://shop.getty.edu/products/buried-by-vesuvius-br-the-villa-dei-papiri-at-herculaneum-978-1606065921

To learn about the related exhibition visit https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/villa_papiri/