Revealing letters in rolled Herculaneum papyri by X-ray phase-contrast imaging
Revealing letters in rolled Herculaneum papyri by X-ray phase-contrast imaging
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DOI：
10.1038/ncomms6895
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发表时间：
2015-01-01
影响因子：
16.6
通讯作者：
Delattre, Daniel
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Mocella, Vito;Brun, Emmanuel;Delattre, Daniel
公元79年维苏威火山爆发时埋葬的数百卷纸莎草纸，属于唯一一个从古代流传下来的图书馆，260年前在赫库兰尼姆被发现。这些纸莎草纸非常脆弱，在试图打开它们阅读其内容的过程中不可避免地会受到损坏或破坏。近年来，新的成像技术已经开发出来，可以在不打开纸卷的情况下阅读文本。到目前为止，专家们一直无法看到这些纸莎草纸的碳基墨水，即使它们可以穿透螺旋结构的不同层。在这里，我们第一次展示了X射线相衬断层扫描可以揭示隐藏在珍贵的纸莎草纸中的各种字母，而无需展开它们。这一尝试为阅读许多赫库兰尼姆纸莎草纸开辟了新的机会，这些纸莎草纸仍然卷着，从而增强了我们对古希腊文学和哲学的了解。
Hundreds of papyrus rolls, buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD and belonging to the only library passed on from Antiquity, were discovered 260 years ago at Herculaneum. These carbonized papyri are extremely fragile and are inevitably damaged or destroyed in the process of trying to open them to read their contents. In recent years, new imaging techniques have been developed to read the texts without unwrapping the rolls. Until now, specialists have been unable to view the carbon-based ink of these papyri, even when they could penetrate the different layers of their spiral structure. Here for the first time, we show that X-ray phase-contrast tomography can reveal various letters hidden inside the precious papyri without unrolling them. This attempt opens up new opportunities to read many Herculaneum papyri, which are still rolled up, thus enhancing our knowledge of ancient Greek literature and philosophy.