Scientists Have Deciphered the Surviving Fragments of a 2,000-Year-Old Philosophical Treatise Frozen in Time by Mount Vesuvius' Eruption

Ellen Wexler | Writer and Special Projects Editor

Add as preferred source Researchers have virtually unwrapped a nearly five-foot-long segment of PHerc. 1667. Vesuvius Challenge When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E., volcanic ash buried a vast library in the Roman town of Herculaneum. The hundreds of papyrus scrolls trapped inside were only rediscovered more than 1,500 years later, in the mid-18th century. But when scholars tried to unroll them, the carbonized manuscripts crumbled to dust.

Every generation that followed faced the same dilemma: They could wait for technology to advance, abandoning hope of reading the ancient texts in their own lifetime. Or they could try to open the scrolls themselves—and risk destroying them.