Revealing letters in rolled Herculaneum papyri by X-ray phase-contrast imaging

[Duncan Head]

Reading the scroll without unrolling it because the X-rays can differentiate "the relief of the letters, which rise at least one hundred microns above the surface of the papyrus fibres". This is seriously impressive.

Summary at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30888767
Article at Nature Communications

[Jim Webster]

very impressive, and fascinating

Jim

[Patrick Waterson]

Also quite remarkable discovering a Greek 'H'. I suspect this may actually have been a pi.  Still, X-ray phase-contrast tomography looks like the best thing since sliced scrolls.

[Duncan Head]

Also quite remarkable discovering a Greek 'H'. I suspect this may actually have been a pi.

The original article makes clear it's a capital ēta, of course.

[Tim]

Are they Basquing in the glory...?

[Patrick Waterson]

Also quite remarkable discovering a Greek 'H'. I suspect this may actually have been a pi.

The original article makes clear it's a capital ēta, of course.

Thanks, Duncan.

It looks as if it will be a while before anything comes to light, but maybe some day we shall have a fuller version of Polybius and see what all the missing bits actually say.

[Duncan Head]

Are they Basquing in the glory...?

I don't think their underwear was mentioned.

[willb]

There is also the possibility that some of the missing histories may be found.

[Duncan Head]

Resurrecting this thread from the ashes - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35865470 gives a scientific update: apparently there is lead in the ink some centuries earlier than expected.

"Most [of the scrolls] are philosophical works in Greek, but other works include a comedy in Latin" - so don't expect much in the way of historical revelations.

[Duncan Head]

The latest article on trying to read the Herculaneum scrolls - https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/oct/03/ancient-scrolls-charred-by-vesuvius-could-be-read-once-again - suggests that the X-ray phase-contrast stuff at the top of this thread was a false alarm:

... it has also proved impossible to replicate findings that letters within Herculaneum scrolls can be deciphered by the naked eye from scans captured by a slightly different x-ray technique.

But all is not lost:

As a result the team have come up with a new approach that uses high-energy x-rays together with a type of artificial intelligence known as machine learning.

Breath still bated, then. However, I think I had missed:

A new historical work by Seneca the Elder was discovered among the unidentified Herculaneum papyri only last year

For that, see https://www.romeandart.eu/en/art-news-historia-seneca.html:

A new technology and the expertise and patience of Valeria Piano have given back to the world an important text by Anneo Seneca the Elder: "Historiae ab initio bellorum civileum", a historical work related to events from the period of civil wars to Emperor Tiberius, probably the last work written by the historian who died in 37 AD

[PMBardunias]

I am curious to know what work or works each of you would most like to have found? My tops are Aeneas's and Pyrrhus's Taktica, perhaps Sosylus as well.

[Patrick Waterson]

1) Polybius' missing books.
2) Livy's earlier missing books (judging by a partial recovery of Book XCI, his later books were rather a waste of time).
3) Claudius' Etruscan history.
4) Claudius' Carthaginian history.

[Tim]

Anything so long as it is not more Cassius Dio...

[Dangun]

Ctesias' Persica, Syballine books.