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from the In-absentia-lucis,-Tenebrae-vincunt dept.
Researchers in Oxfordshire are working to 'virtually unroll' several scrolls from the library of Herculaneum.
The scrolls were buried by Mt. Vesuvius which erupted in 79AD and are far to fragile to unroll physically (it has been tried with a few scrolls from this library with "largely disastrous results")
Unlike other ancient scrolls, these have resisted previous efforts to scan and read them due to their use of carbon based ink.
Unlike metal-based inks, such as the iron gall used to write medieval documents, carbon ink has a density similar to that of the carbonized papyrus on which it sits. Therefore, it appears invisible in X-ray scans.
The scrolls will be scanned at the U.K.'s Diamond Light Source synchrotron science facility at photon energies of 53-150keV.
The researchers believe that the tomography will "capture subtle, non-density-based evidence of ink, even when it is invisible to the naked eye in the scan data."
The machine-learning tool we are developing will amplify that ink signal by training a computer algorithm to recognize it pixel-by-pixel from photographs of opened fragments that show exactly where the ink is, voxel-by-voxel, in the corresponding tomographic data of the fragments. The tool can then be deployed on data from the still-rolled scrolls, identify the hidden ink, and make it more prominently visible to any reader.
The opened fragments that will be used to train the tool are the remains from scrolls sacrificed in earlier physical attempts at unrolling.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday October 06 2019, @07:40PM (6 children)
"LOOK OUT! THERE'S A GIANT EUPTI - AAAAAAAARGH"
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday October 06 2019, @08:00PM (4 children)
Based on the graffiti at Pompeii it will be something like "Lucius has a tiny dick".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 06 2019, @08:13PM
That was "Pompous Trumpous has tiny hands".
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 06 2019, @08:26PM
Which proves there were trolls even when literacy was 30%.
(Score: 2, Informative) by RandomFactor on Sunday October 06 2019, @08:26PM (1 child)
True dat!
See here [kashgar.com.au] for examples :-)
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 06 2019, @08:55PM
"Take hold of your servant girl whenever you want to; it's your right"
They had nigger bitches in Pompeii, see.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 07 2019, @01:09AM
I thought all the bawdy comments were graffiti on the bath house walls. The scrolls are going to be the ancient equivalent of Quickbooks files -- Joe bought 3 dozen widgets for 5 talents. Or, maybe we finally get to see the tax returns...