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Hear from experts about the challenges of unraveling and reading hundreds of carbonized papyri scrolls buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79. Classicists David Blank of the University of California Los Angeles and Richard Janko of the University of Michigan discuss early and current attempts to open the fragile layers and decipher their texts, and computer scientist W. Brent Seales of the University of Kentucky shares how advances in technology and machine learning might allow the still unopened ancient book rolls to be "virtually unwrapped" and read. October 19, 2019, The Getty Villa, Malibu, California.Reading the Herculaneum...

The grounds of the Getty Villa caught fire on Tuesday as a blaze continued tearing through the Los Angeles neighborhood of Pacific Palisades. The museum and its staff were not harmed, according to a statement issued today by the Getty, which said that the Getty Villa will remain closed through January 13. “Irrigation was immediately deployed throughout the grounds Tuesday morning,” the statement said. “Museum galleries and library archives were sealed off from smoke by state-of-the-art air handling systems. The double-walled construction of the galleries also provides significant protection for the collections.” The Getty Villa is one of the two...

Buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, an over-life-size bronze portrait of Tiberius (ruled A.D. 14–37) was discovered in 1741, during the first years of excavation at Herculaneum. On loan from the Museo Archeologico Nazionale in Naples, this statue is the subject of the exhibitionTiberius: Portrait of an Emperor, on view at the Getty Villa October 16, 2013 through March 3, 2014. Brought to the Getty Villa for conservation and analysis last October, the sculpture provides an opportunity to re-examine the career and character of Rome’s second emperor. The exhibition has been co-organized by the J. Paul Getty...