Identification of metallic elements in the inks of unopened Herculanean papyrus rolls by means of X-ray fluorescence analysis.

赫库兰尼纸莎草卷代表了唯一现存的古代图书馆，在其原始环境中被发现，并提供了最重要的伊壁鸠鲁文学收藏。迄今为止破译的文本构成了从古代到希腊化时期几乎每一个希腊文学分支的最重要的来源。由于各种各样的尝试打开和读取碳化卷，其中许多被打破或切成碎片。大约有500卷书仍然完全或部分未开封。最近没有尝试打开全部或部分展开的纸莎草卷，因为希望未来的非侵入性方法将使隐藏在卷内的文字可见。2015年，格勒诺布尔的ERSF通过x射线相衬成像在一卷赫库兰尼书中检测到的模糊字母的小序列发表了。现在的挑战在于需要更清晰地聚焦于文字，并虚拟地展开压碎的书卷层。Brent Seales的团队成功地进行了虚拟展开，他们对一卷烧焦的希伯来书卷进行了计算机断层扫描，上面刻有含有墨水的金属。但由于赫库兰尼纸莎草纸没有这种强烈的金属一致性，而且将这么多易碎的卷轴运送到同步器是不现实的，因此迫切需要额外的标准来识别和区分赫库兰尼纸莎草纸上的墨水痕迹，以便在那不勒斯国家图书馆进行分析。以在几份赫库兰尼纸莎草纸的墨水中发现铅为出发点，并利用2020年发表的便携式x射线荧光光谱仪对近40份赫库兰尼纸莎草纸的墨水进行了初步调查，发现了几种不同数量和比例的金属，这项为期三年的提案首次建议使用一个联合的近红外和XRF成像光谱仪（IRIS）系统地分析大约500个未打开的赫库兰尼纸莎草卷的墨水，该光谱仪将安装在那不勒斯国家图书馆的Officina dei Papiri。虽然在那些金属元素出现高浓度的情况下，同步辐射的使用将来可能会被那不勒斯国家图书馆内的计算机断层扫描所取代，但对赫库兰尼纸莎草卷墨水的研究本身就特别重要。只有赫库兰尼时期的纸莎草纸才有机会在属于同一个古代图书馆的大量样本的油墨中检测金属的存在。它们都在公元79年维苏威火山爆发前的终点，大部分是在意大利写的，少部分是在希腊写的，这就提供了一个独特的机会，可以将意大利和希腊的这些墨水中的金属含量与其他古代纸莎草纸中的金属含量进行比较，这些纸莎草纸大多在埃及和近东发现（数量少得多）。

The Herculanean papyrus rolls represent the only extant ancient library ever found in its original context and offer the most important collection of Epicurean literature. The texts deciphered so far constitute a source of highest importance for nearly every branch of Greek literature from the Archaic to the Hellenistic period. Due to the various attempts to open and read the carbonized rolls, many of them were broken or cut off into pieces. About 500 book rolls are still completely or partially unopened. No recent attempts to open entirely or partially unrolled papyrus rolls too were made since it is hoped that future non-invasive methods will render visible the hidden writing inside the rolls. In 2015 small sequences of blurred letters detected inside a Herculanean book roll by X-ray phase contrast imaging in the ERSF at Grenoble were published. The challenge now consists in the need of sharper focussing of the writing and of virtual unwrapping of the crushed bookroll layers. Virtual unrolling was successfully practised by Brent Seales’ team working on the computer tomography of a charred Hebrew scroll inscribed with metal containing ink. But since the Herculanean papyri do not have this strong metallic consistence and the transport of so many fragile rolls to a synchrotrone is unrealistic, additional criteria to identify and distinguish traces of ink in Herculanean papyri which may allow for analysis to be made inside the National Library of Naples are urgently needed. Taking as starting points the discovery of lead in the inks of several Herculanean papyri and a preliminary investigation in the ink of nearly 40 Herculanean papyri by means of an portable X-Ray fluorescence spectrometer published in 2020 which reveals several metals in different quantities and proportions, the present three-years’ proposal suggests for the first time analyzing systematically the ink of ca. 500 unopened Herculanean papyrus rolls using a combined NIR & XRF Imaging Spectrometer (IRIS) to be installed in the Officina dei Papiri of the National Library of Naples. While in those cases, in which the metallic elements appear in high concentration, the use of synchrotron radiation may in future be substituted by the of computer tomography within the National Library of Naples, the research on the ink of Herculanean papyrus rolls is itself exceptionally important. Only the Herculanean papyri offer the chance of detecting the presence of metals in the inks of such a large number of samples belonging to the same ancient library. They share the terminus ante quem of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE and were written mostly in Italy, and in a minor quantity in Greece, providing the unique opportunity to compare the presence of metals in these inks from Italy and Greece with that in the other ancient papyri which were mostly found in Egypt and (in a much lower quantity) in the Near Orient.