Blurs

In the aftermath of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, something extraordinary happened inside a Roman villa at Herculaneum. A library was destroyed. But it wasn't completely destroyed. The papyrus scrolls inside were exposed to extreme heat, carbonising them into blackened, brittle cylinders. The writing survived in some cases, but the books became so fragile that opening them could destroy the very information researchers were trying to recover. For almost two thousand years, the knowledge inside remained effectively sealed. Now scientists are doing something that sounds completely backwards. They are burning scrolls on purpose. Not the ancient ones. They are making modern replicas, filling them with known writing, rolling them up and deliberately carbonising them. Then they scan the wreckage. The reason is simple: if researchers can understand exactly what happens to writing when a scroll burns, they may be able to work backwards from the damaged objects at Herculaneum and...