Herculaneum Papyri in the National Library in Naples

A look back (this was first published on 30 March 2015): I’m new to papyrology but I’ve never seen anything as brain-crackingly slow or detailed as the work being done by these academics.

The Phraser

Herculaneum papyrus Naples A papyrus scroll – not quite destroyed by Vesuvius

The photograph above is of a papyrus scroll from a private library buried by Vesuvius in AD 79.

There are hundreds of scrolls like it, all scarred keepers of ancient thought.  So far it has taken almost two thousand years to unpick a fraction of their secrets.

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