An ancient Greek text has been “decoded” by a team of Italian and European scientists who examined the papyrus scrolls of Heraklion, charred by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

High-tech, non-invasive imaging techniques allowed the researchers to “unveil” the texts on the scrolls. The scrolls, many of which contain works by Greek philosophers, were discovered between 1752 and 1754 during archaeological excavations at the so-called “Villa of the Papyri” in Heraklion (ancient Herculaneum – modern Ercolano) in Campania, Italy, near Pompeii. The villa was obliterated and buried in ash following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Today, the approximately 1,840 scrolls are preserved at the National Library of Naples and the Institut de France in Paris. Essentially, this collection is the only surviving ancient Greco-Roman library, originally housed in a small room of a Roman villa. These are the first scrolls with Greek writing discovered in archaeological excavations.

arxaioellinika-keimena-papuroi-vezoubios1

After the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, a wave of hot air, peaking at 320 degrees Celsius, burned the delicate scrolls, leaving them charred and extremely fragile. Any attempts to unroll and read them risked causing severe damage. To date, around 800 scrolls have been opened, often with disastrous or limited success.

Nevertheless, scientists persist, utilizing increasingly advanced digital technology to virtually unroll and decipher these scrolls, continually making strides in their challenging endeavor.

This time, a team of researchers from Italy, France, Germany, and Russia, led by Graziano Ranocia of the ILIESI (Instituto per il Lessico Intellettuale Europeo e Storia delle Idee) in Rome, announced in the journal Science Advances that they successfully “read” sections of Greek text hidden in the scroll PHerc. 1691/1021, using hyperspectral imaging in the short infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum (1,000 to 2,500 nanometers).

This particular scroll, the most famous of the collection, contains text from the “History of the Academy” (the Platonic), part of a larger work by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus. The new technology used to read it – which offers better results than previous 950-nanometer imaging – opens the door for similar work on other charred scrolls from the same or different collections, potentially providing invaluable insights for specialists in papyrology, classical literature, and ancient philosophy.

Thanks to a new technique, hidden text is now more clearly visible than the text on the observable front side.

arxaioellinika-keimena-papuroi-vezoubios2

Graciano Ranokia: Access Granted After 225 Years

“The 12 primary columns of the Greek text were initially discovered and transcribed in 1795 by Neapolitan Genaro Casanova,” says Graziano Ranocchia. “Shortly after, the unrolled scroll PHerc. 1691/1021, which housed the text, was cut into pieces. These pieces were eventually glued to cardboard, making it impossible to access the hidden text for the next 225 years. Casanova’s manuscript copy was included in a folder containing sketches of the scroll made before 1802, the so-called Oxford Sketches. These were eventually ‘transferred’ – or perhaps one should say ‘stolen’ – by Reverend John Heiter from Palermo to Oxford, where they now reside in the Bodleian Library.”

Speaking on the novelty and significance of the new method, the Italian researcher emphasized, “This is the first time scientists have managed to access and read in a non-invasive way – without removing the scroll fragments from their base – a text written on the back of an ancient scroll that we have not had access to until now. This allows us to recover for the first time the original Greek text on the back of the scroll, so that we can include it in a new critical edition of the valuable book it contains, Philodemus’ ‘History of the Academy’. Furthermore, our method has enhanced the color contrast, and hence the legibility of the visible text on the front, compared to previous imaging techniques.”

When asked about the utility of the new technique for other scrolls in the future, Ranokia responded, “It will be incredibly useful for the non-invasive reading of the inaccessible text on the back of other back-inscribed papyri – there are a total of eight of these in the Herculaneum collection, according to experts. It will also enhance our understanding of the text of thousands of Heracleion and other Greco-Egyptian papyri, both on the front and back, which will significantly impact our knowledge of ancient philosophy and classical literature.”

#img#

Invitation to Greek Researchers

Ranokia noted, “No Greek scientists are involved in the new research. However, Mr Konstantinos Rapandzikos (ed. A researcher at the Laboratory of Images and Multimedia Systems of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) was the first to implement hyperspectral imaging for medieval palimpsests. Meanwhile, three other Greek colleagues utilized multispectral imaging for the papyrus of Tomb II in Daphne, dating back to the 5th century BC, the oldest Greek papyrus ever found.”

The Italian researcher did not dismiss the possibility of “future collaboration with any of these esteemed Greek colleagues or anyone else interested in integrating modern technology into the study of classical antiquity and cultural heritage.”

Speaking broadly about the progress made in deciphering the 1,840 scrolls of Heraklion, Ranokia stated, “For the past 250 years, since their discovery, these scrolls have been the focus of rigorous and meticulous efforts of restoration and interpretation, long before the birth of modern papyrology. Researchers have painstakingly read them with the naked eye for decades, and only in the past 50 years has conventional microscopy been employed. Hundreds of studies have been published, illuminating previously unknown or obscure Greek and Roman writers and philosophers, contributing to the mythos of the classical world.”

#img#

The complete collection of the Heraklian scrolls, currently housed at the National Library of Naples, was photographed in infrared (at 950 nanometers) between 1999-2002 by American researchers at Brigham Young University.

As Mr. Ranokia noted, “for that era, the results were remarkable in terms of color contrast and readability of the Greek text, marking a kind of revolution in Heraklion studies. However, in many instances the contrast was insufficient and, moreover, that method was unable to penetrate deeper layers to reveal the underlying text. Now, thanks to hyperspectral imaging in the short infrared, both contrast and readability have significantly improved, making it possible to read even concealed text that is invisible to the naked eye.”

The new imaging of a single unrolled scroll, PHerc. 1691/1021, comprising nine large and well-preserved fragments, took five days and was conducted by a mobile laboratory from the French National Research Centre (CNRS), as part of the European Research Infrastructure for Cultural Heritage Sciences (E-RIHS).

According to Ranokia, the research team has plans “to extend the same experiments to the entire collection of scrolls within the next few years, with the objective of creating a comprehensive database of hyperspectral images of all the Heraklion scrolls. This will enable both conservators to slow down the deterioration process of these scrolls and researchers to produce more thorough and enhanced critical editions of the texts. Whether this will come to fruition will evidently hinge as much on political decisions as on the availability of resources and funding for such a project.”

Information sourced from APE-MPA

Tags: