Scientists read charred ancient scrolls by spotting lead ink without unrolling
Researchers used neutron and X-ray tomography to detect lead in ink, allowing virtual reading of burned papyrus scrolls without physically unrolling them.
A research group reproduced ancient carbonized scrolls by writing with ink containing varying amounts of lead, rolling the papyrus and subjecting it to high-temperature treatment similar to the Vesuvius disaster. Using the Neutron and X-ray Tomography system at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, they generated three-dimensional images and applied a custom algorithm—originally designed for lithium-ion battery films—to virtually unroll the rolls.
The approach exploits the contrast between lead in the ink and the carbon-based papyrus, addressing a key limitation of standard CT scans that struggle to separate ink from substrate. The findings, reported in PLoS ONE, extend recent successes in digitally reading Herculaneum scrolls, including a prize-winning identification of a Greek text via the Vesuvius Challenge. If scaled, the technique could unlock the contents of the only surviving complete ancient library, preserving thousands of texts that have remained sealed for two millennia.
