[SunkenCiv]

Thanks rdl6989. I'm glad they finally started this. What the story doesn't say (and implies didn't happen) is that the idiots of the past couple centuries couldn't just leave the damned scrolls alone and preserved until something else could be figured out. There was a monumentally destructive unrolling program that went on for years.

Related to this, the same house where this private library was found seems to have another storey, and some optimistic speculation goes that there's another room to the library on that floor.

[To Hell With Poverty]

During the x-ray, do they have to squeeze the scrolls till they hurt?

[BenLurkin]

VERY cool!

[NYer]

Unrolling the scrolls has proved difficult and destructive

Analysis is a painstaking job because the layers of paper are squashed and twisted

The scrolls are the only library known to have survived from classical times

The work was time-consuming and involved a lot of guesswork, particularly because the layers of paper were not just rolled, but squashed and mangled by their encounter with Vesuvius.

Furthermore, the grid of papyrus fibres within the paper posed complications, because it disguised many of the letters' vertical and horizontal strokes. For this reason, letters with curved lines were easier to pick out.

Simply amazing! Having visited Herculaneum and Pompeii, and seen the total destruction, this technology will serve to open up some of the secrets lost when Vesuvius erupted.