Shedding light on obscure Roman scrolls ------------------------------------------- Scientists are using light 10 billion times brighter than the sun to help decipher ancient Roman scrolls, turned to brittle charcoal and buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted almost 2,000 years ago ------------------------------------------- Left: One of two complete scrolls from Herculaneum, too fragile to open, that will be scanned by Diamond Light Source synchrotron in Oxfordshire, UK ------------------------------------------- AD79: Mount Vesuvius erupts, destroying cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and burying them under massive pyroclastic surges and ashfall deposits ------------------------------------------- 200km 120 miles ITALY Rome Naples ------------------------------------------- Ruins of Herculaneum: Archaelogical site situated in modern town of Ercolano ------------------------------------------- 5km 3 miles Modern maps Naples Mount Vesuvius Ercolano (Herculaneum) Gulf of Naples Torre Annunziata Pompeii ------------------------------------------- Villa of the Papyri: Remains of lavish villa, likely owned by Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, father-in-law of Julius Caesar. Housed library of some 1,800 scrolls – carbonised when villa was buried under intensely hot ash ------------------------------------------- UNRAVELLING SECRETS Institut de France in Paris possesses 900 scrolls from Herculaneum – two have been loaned for this project 1 Carbonised scroll Holder: Custom-fit case reduces handling of delicate scroll High energy X-ray: Very high resolution scan can detect changes in microscopic structure of papyrus, including where carbon-based ink is applied ------------------------------------------- 2 Synchrotron output Segmentation: Platform rotates and rises, allowing beam to scan slices of scroll (above) ------------------------------------------- University of Kentucky scans completed data, using computer technology under for 15 years development 3 Scroll virtually unfurled Flattening: Software converts textured 3D scan data into flat plane so original Latin text can be read ------------------------------------------- If successful, study of further scrolls could offer unparallelled access to unknown works from antiquity ------------------------------------------- Pictures: Diamond Light Source, Google Earth Pro © GRAPHIC NEWS Sources: Diamond Light Source, University of Kentucky College of Engineering, BBC