The 2,000-Year-Old Books We Can’t Open | Secrets of Herculaneum

What if we discovered a 2,000-year-old book that nobody alive has ever read… but opening it could destroy the only copy? That's the incredible problem surrounding the Herculaneum scrolls. When Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, the Roman city of Herculaneum was buried beneath volcanic material. Inside the Villa of the Papyri, hundreds of ancient scrolls were carbonized by the intense heat but, incredibly, survived. For centuries, researchers faced an impossible choice: leave the scrolls closed and preserve them, or attempt to open them and risk destroying the words inside. Now that may be changing. In this episode of the Triple T Podcast, Beard Laws and Luther dive into the lost library of Herculaneum, the disastrous early attempts to physically open its scrolls, and the remarkable technology scientists are now using to read them without ever unrolling them. We explore virtual unwrapping, X-ray imaging, microscopic traces left by ancient ink, machine learning, the Vesuvius Challenge, and new research that could give scientists even more ways to recover writing hidden inside carbonized papyrus. But the biggest question remains: **What is still inside the unopened scrolls?** More Greek philosophy? A work believed to have been lost for thousands of years? An ancient author whose name disappeared completely from history? Or maybe just a Roman guy complaining about his neighbor? After nearly 2,000 years, the words are still there. For the first time, we may finally have the technology to hear them again. **Topics include:** Herculaneum scrolls, Mount Vesuvius, Villa of the Papyri, ancient Rome, lost ancient books, virtual unwrapping, Vesuvius Challenge, artificial intelligence, X-ray tomography, archaeology, Philodemus, lost literature and ancient history. **Triple T Podcast** Hosted by Beard Laws with Luther New mysteries, strange history, unbelievable discoveries and rabbit holes worth opening every week. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.