For the first time, researchers have identified the author and title of a document that’s been locked inside a charred scroll for nearly 2,000 years—without peeling back a single layer. The scroll, PHerc. 172, was recovered from the ruins of Herculaneum, the ancient Roman town buried by the ash and debris of Mount Vesuvius in […]
Preserved in Glass: How Mount Vesuvius Locked This Roman’s Brain in Time
Nearly 2,000 years ago, Mount Vesuvius erupted, swallowing the nearby Roman towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii in a superheated cloud of ash, dust, and volcanic material. The environment was so hot that a team of researchers say it turned at least one resident’s brain into glass. Not only did the individual’s once-squishy, pinkish-white organ get […]
AI Unlocks 2,000-Year-Old Herculaneum Scroll Carbonized by Vesuvius
Researchers at the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries and the Vesuvius Challenge have deciphered yet another scroll carbonized by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. The scroll—designated PHerc. 172—is one of nearly 2,000 carbonized scrolls and charred papyrus fragments found in the lost Roman town of Herculaneum in 1750, and one of three […]