\u201cIf we know that the Herculaneum papyri have lead in them\u2014some of them do, some of them don\u2019t\u2014then when they take the CT scan, they can scan it with a sensitivity for the element lead and we can see where the ink is,\u201d Leah Packard-Grams<\/a>, a papyrologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who consulted for the research, explained in a statement<\/a>. \u201cAs you unroll it, you can map the letters a lot more clearly.\u201d<\/p>\n An ancient intact library <\/p>\n When Mount Vesuvius erupted, it both triggered the most infamous ancient tragedy and, in Herculaneum, preserved today\u2019s only known intact library from antiquity. The caveat is that all of the library\u2019s ancient scrolls are completely carbonized. After they were discovered in 1751, \u201cexperts\u201d tried to physically unroll them but mostly ended up with piles of ashes. Only this past summer did researchers manage to virtually unroll and read an entire Herculaneaum scroll<\/a>, but they didn\u2019t leverage the potential presence of lead.<\/p>\n \u201cWith lead in the ink, you would get a huge friggin\u2019 signature, so you really need to be looking for scrolls with lead in them,\u201d said Douglas Seiler, co-author of the study and a retired inventor. \u201cThey\u2019re having problems reading a lot of them because of the low contrast of carbon ink on carbon paper,\u201d he added, presumably referring to other scientists working on the scrolls. \u201cWe\u2019re relatively certain that if they start searching for lead, or they let us search for lead, it will help this whole process. This is the Holy Grail.\u201d<\/p>\n To test out this theory, Seiler made his own crunchy Herculaneum scroll with papyrus and reed pens from Egypt and traditional lampblack ink from Japan. He paid high school students to write on the papyrus with inks of various lead concentrations, rolled it up, stuck it in a low-oxygen semi-sealed steel container, and put the container in a high-temperature furnace.<\/p>\n The team then conducted a 3D X-ray CT scan of this barbecued Herculaneum scroll imitation. Lead absorbs more X-rays than the surrounding papyrus, so the ink appeared bright in the resulting 3D computer model. A 3D model of a burned scroll is still illegible, however, and so the team used a computer algorithm to virtually unroll the scroll and display the text, including excerpts from the Bible as well as Star Wars.<\/p>\n Unquantifiable value <\/p>\n The team that produced the first reading of a complete Herculaneum scroll a few months ago followed a similar process, but as mentioned previously, they weren\u2019t looking for leaded ink. Researchers have previously discovered<\/a> leaded ink in two Herculaneum scroll fragments, but no one has ever thoroughly searched the Herculaneum scrolls for it.<\/p>\n![\"Fake](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/fake-and-real-scroll-336x326.jpg\")
Top: the modern burnt papyrus scroll for the recent study. Bottom: a real Herculaneum scroll. \u00a9 Douglas Seiler and the EduceLab, Univ. of Kentucky \u00a9 Douglas Seiler and the EduceLab, Univ. of Kentucky <\/p>\n![\"Scroll](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/scroll-imitation-252x336.jpg\")
Seiler hired high schoolers to write text on new papyrus. \u00a9 Douglas Seiler \u00a9 Douglas Seiler <\/p>\n