First letters found in new scroll - Vesuvius Challenge
Today we are thrilled to share a new scroll dataset that is already full of exciting findings. In collaboration with our partners at the Bodleian Library, the University of Oxford, Diamond Light Source, and EduceLab, we present: PHerc. 172!
As with the other Herculaneum scrolls, the story of PHerc. 172 begins two thousand years ago, when it was written before being buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. But we’re going to skip ahead to modernity, after the scroll was discovered and unearthed.
In 1802 or 1803, PHerc. 172 and five other scrolls were given by the king of Naples and Sicily, Ferdinand IV, to the future George IV in England - allegedly in exchange for some kangaroos. Yes, really! 1 Stay tuned for the rest of the story, as we couldn’t fit it all today with the other exciting info to share.
The scroll is currently kept at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, England. We imaged the scroll earlier this year with our collaborators at Diamond Light Source, a synchrotron facility conveniently located nearby. Similar to previous scans, this one was acquired with a voxel size of 7.91 μm and an incident energy of 53 keV. The scroll is large enough that it had to be scanned in two halves, but they’ve been merged into a single, complete volume.
