Out of the Ashes: Recovering the Lost Library of Herculaneum (2003)

Twenty years ago, Brigham Young University engineers and classical scholars pioneered the use of multispectral imaging technologies to read ancient documents, including the charred and fragile Herculaneum papyri. In the case of the Herculaneum papyri, which were carbonized and buried by the same eruption that destroyed the ancient city of Pompeii in AD 79, the BYU team had miraculous results. Black ink on blackened pages of papyri suddenly became readable, to the amazement of scholars. The BYU images would lead to dozens of new publications and forever changed the world of papyrology.
Out of the Ashes: Recovering the Lost Library of Herculaneum, produced in 2003, tells the story of the only library ever recovered from antiquity, and efforts by a worldwide team of scholars to unroll, read and preserve the fragile scrolls.
The documentary was produced by Brigham Young University/KBYU Television for American Public Television. Special thanks to Roger Macfarlane, BYU associate professor of comparative arts and letters, Giovanni Tata, and to Biblioteca Nationale "Vittorio Emanuele III" in Naples, Italy.
In 2023, engineers at the University of Kentucky announced exciting new advancements that will allow the Herculaneum papyri to be read without unrolling them and to decipher the texts using AI. The announcement has sparked a renewed interest in the original Herculaneum documentary, and in BYU's groundbreaking work using technology to study ancient papyri.

[@moonroxxit]

I find this archeology so exciting I have goosebumps as I type. Because I’m 77, I will never live long enough to enjoy any of what more will be discovered. I’m happy to see this documentary. To me, it’s more interesting than excavating the valley of the pharaohs in Egypt.

[@tuvoca825]

You can go online to read some of these I believe....

[@patriciaolowney4910]

I'm right behind you, Moonrox!!! The idea is: Plan on making it to 99, so we can learn the rest!!!

[@suziperret468]

With AI you could see the results sooner than you think..

[@saywhat8966]

The Dead Sea Scrolls are awesome and agree with the Bible. Sadly many were torn to bits to sell and make more money.

[@juliarman]

Go and spend a day at the Getty Villa! It is the most cherished memory of my life.

[@macraghnaill3553]

Now 20 years since this was made, could do with an update . A very interesting video

[@ChristaFree]

I visited here when I was a teenager living in Tuscany. At the time, one of the fellas that worked there took us behind the scenes, so to speak, and we saw lots of things not available for public viewing at the time. I remember seeing where they were excavating a man who was running towards a boat, and the front part of the boat had been excavated too. It's still a vivid memory in my mind.

[@zibberebbiz]

it's funny looking back at the earliest attempts to unroll the scrolls and thinking "wow, they destroyed so much knowledge with their fumbling", and realizing people maybe 500 years from *now* will look at us in a very similar way

[@litebkt]

We now have the technology to read these without unrolling them. This is fascinating stuff.

[@simonstergaard]

yes, there was a recent docu showing how they xray scanned and unrolled the scrolls with software.

[@josephhewes3923]

The technology is still being refined. They have the technology to see the layers, and distinguish letters on those layers, but the process is still being worked out. Unfortunately, these developments are moving at a glacial pace and it will still be decades at best, before they've been able to employ this new method and get enough data to actually read the texts.

[@GenXstacker]

I worked with papyri as an undergrad at UC Berkeley. I would have loved to work with documents having such crisp, clear and easy to read text as those provided through this spectral imaging technique. The results are almost like seeing the original undamaged work. Most of the texts we work with are not literary texts such as these, they are documents like letters, tax receipts, records of local officials, etc. Those tend to be written in sloppy cursive, with lots of abbreviations and spelling errors, not the nice clear capital letters you see in these documents.

[@calvingifford9442]

Such an excellent, inspiring video! A real shame that documentaries like this are not more popular with the citizens of this planet.

[@tuathadenan]

Incredible. Such a shame so many were lost.

[@funfact8660]

Like at the great Library of Alexandria

[@aresaurelian]

If they only had saved the dust from the failed experiments, our new AI systems could resolve and re puzzle it all.

[@peterfreiling6963]

I sympathize with Marcello. Many scientific endeavors last more than a single lifetime, or even multiple lifetimes. One can spend an entire career searching for something and not finding it.

[@janettalbott748]

I lived in Naples when Steve & Susan Booras were working on these. It was very interesting to listen to them talk about the work they were doing. I remember Susan saying many of the texts were epicurian.

[@catchaser52]

How about an update about the books discovered ?

[@ctafrance]

A classicist by training myself, in my youth, I found this fascinating. What the folks at BYU have done is priceless. Amazing. God bless BYU for doing this.

[@rabbitholesinc]

55:06 "I hope that before my death, I can see the all of the villa the light of our sun." This is the gentlest soul I have ever come across in my life. Rest in Peace, Dear Soul, Dear Son of Vesuvius, Dear, dear, Marcello Gigante.

[@lizstratton9689]

IN the UK we went and looked for a King in a Car Park .... and found him, so all things are possible if we try.

[@suziperret468]

Yeah, they destroyed a lot of information by unrolling the papyri. Now they can unroll text on the scrolls without unrolling them. So, they were on the right track by filming them..but today they can virtually unwrap them. But, they still have a ways to go to perfect the technique to read them.

[@CW-ee5ih]

Thank you for a beautiful and very nicely produced piece. Delightful

[@jjwillemen]

So this is the 2003 viewpoint! Glad to know that by now (2024) totally new and stronger (MRI-Type) exploration methods are beginning to be applied.

[@paulpittsburgh]

WHAT A LOVELY DOCUMENTARY. SO MUCH MORE TO DISCOVER. AMAZING!

[@darrencorrigan8505]

Thanks, BYU.

[@esbliss13]

I went through the Villa in Malibu in the 90s when it was The Getty Art Museum. (Before they built the bigger one) It was stunningly beautiful.

[@robinbennett3531]

Yes brilliant but what did they say?

[@josefinematildehansenvonki2384]

That's also what I was thinking 😅

[@pipfox7834]

They said everything in moderation and always follow the Epicurean way of life

[@lisaborsella5412]

Exactly what I’m asking 😊

[@danieltikusis5239]

The papyri scrolls should be sealed in argon filled insulated glass windows / boxes. Have all of the opened scroll fragments been examined with multispectral imaging? Has this digital library been published yet?

[@atlantic_love]

Is there not a way to just get the images needed and then preserve the papyri in some sort of hard plastic or glass and then store them away from light?

[@amykins9870]

Just think where we are today 2023 this was 2003!!!!!

[@mpjarvis7002]

What's exciting is that we may be able to read contemporary philosophers (not the scraps we have translated from other languages) and perhaps also more insight into the Etruscan language.

[@fosterhart2013]

Just incredible !

[@MicaFarrierRheayan]

They really dedicated with their job and love the passionate researchers

[@user-wb9vz3dt5y]

What has happened since 2003? twenty years ago

[@HappyQuailsLC]

I think the looming Vesuvius should also act as a reminder of the time ticking away until tbe next destructive earthquake or eruption will remove our present day's opportunities to access and retrieve the most fragile and irreplaceable ancient remains which are certainly that of the written texts of the Herculanium papyri.

[@spacecardinal]

I just read about this. Very interesting and very well done! Thank you.

[@cruisepaige]

Andrew, the man of Herculaneum. He’s so young!

[@NickVenture1]

Nice news.. that we now just have to wait for the scientists to reveal the texts hidden in the rolls. For humanity to read the ancient writings.

[@user-mm7qn4jw1m]

The music is fighting with the narration. Please reconsider it.

[@saywhat8966]

I often turn sound off and use CC.

[@RTD3]

Would be great to know what the legible texts have to say.

[@megalodon9400]

So exciting!

[@fraumahler5934]

The eruption was not in August. There is graffito recently discovered inside on of the buildings dated to October. Pliny got the date wrong.

[@fleetskipper1810]

Or perhaps he was using a different calendar?

[@danpetitpas]

You would have thought that the date was burned into his memory. But this is still being debated.

[@ESCAGEDOWOODWORKING]

This was awesome!

[@johnnygeejr500]

very clever excellent work cheers to all thec Snazz

[@nataliya2641]

Thank you!

[@geofflewis8599]

..don't expect digital images to last. How about copying them on to bronze plates?..

[@Maria-ln3xc]

O en tablillas de barro

[@joebombero1]

Or carving them on clay tablets and baking them? (Hittite library still very well preserved)

[@kimbo99]

3D print them into synthetic stone polymer. Flintstone tablets to most of us.

[@juancarlostealdo]

Wonderful paradox,this scholars working hard to read the papyrus from Pompeya,while younger generations does not read books anymore.....lets pray to old gods from Greece Egypt and Rome to help them reveal the scrolls of Pompeya.

[@stevemiller6766]

Ok cool you unrolled some... what is on them???

[@1-daydecorating8]

So what did the paypri say?

[@pipfox7834]

They said eat your greens and always keep an Epicurean outlook on life

[@ellenmarch3095]

People are going to look back at this 300 years from now looking at our "space age tech" like we look at that of Victorian industrial revolution. Impressive, but look how much more we could do now...

[@ellenmarch3095]

(Hi future people! 🧏‍♀️)

[@zibberebbiz]

it's so funny we're all chomping at the bit to take a look at what might be on these scrolls, but the optimal mode of action would be to preserve them until millennia into the future, when every single shred of information can be gleaned from them (but of course that is never going to happen, cos we're us)

[@chriscarrol9373]

Ya but alot of that Victorian tech is still working just fine today. How much of today's will even be around in 50 years.

[@unioncityman63]

I remember the anniversary of the eruptions of Vesuvius in August 1979. I was 15

[@kellys.6047]

this is amazing

[@adamgordon-strong9055]

Fascinating!

[@6NBERLS]

Most excellent.

[@beverlyreiner-baillargeon6205]

Awesome video

[@georgeflitzer7160]

Amazing how today we can read these texts,

[@pamelahomeyer748]

❤❤❤ so exciting I cried

[@sheilawhite8314]

Amazing and we don't get to hear Herculaneum or see about the other city Pompeii that went under when the volcano eruption they lived on the coast

[@funfact8660]

Fascinating

[@user-wb9vz3dt5y]

Great Video Nothing is forever stones eventually become sand correct?

[@matthewridgeway9250]

I suppose MRI or other medical imaging techniqies could build a 3D image of each scroll layer, yeah?

[@nobody687]

Find your inner God and reach out to those who do the same, and your life will be happier. I agree

[@geraldmiller5260]

Stone carved with writing lasts. Stainless steel a little less, digital records not at all.

[@matthewridgeway9250]

Scan these scrolls without un-rolling them. It is the only way.

[@AndrewGrey22]

So what do they say?

[@krisbest6405]

Living near a volcano .....not my first choice.

[@mpojr]

what do they say?

[@janekahn8562]

Wow

[@jeff_n1535]

The text, faintly visible on the papyri pieces, looks eactly the same as that of the Nag Hammadi texts and Dead Sea Scrolls. Any suggestions why this is?

[@starspike509]

Just coincidence, I assume, as most of the Dead Sea scrolls are written in Hebrew, and the Herculaneum scrolls are in Greek. Not only are the characters completely different, Hebrew is read from right to left !

[@pipfox7834]

Ancient Greek? Apparently Greek was then like English is today, the universal language of the ancient world. Thus the biblical texts were transcribed from Aramaic to Greek (later transcribed from Greek to Latin, and finally English) No wonder scholars still argue over the exact meaning of some biblical words, as they've been translated and sometimes mistranslated so many times! Note: I just looked up the original text of the Old Testament - it was mostly written in Hebrew with some Aramaic. So that adds another layer!

[@esbliss13]

The scrolls of Nag Hamadi are written in Coptic, translated from Greek. Also, Coptic uses a variant of Greek letters, so you're absolutely correct.

[@starspike509]

@@pipfox7834 The Herculaneum scrolls are not Biblical texts. Is that what you are suggesting or have I misunderstood your comment ?

[@danpetitpas]

Yes, the Nag Hammadi texts were written on papyri and in the desert air, they dried out and the ones that were not totally sealed in jars just fall apart when unrolled. However, they haven't been blackened by a 600-degree volcanic blast, so they don't have the additional challenge of being black ink on black papyrus.

[@greggweber9967]

How will the digital library be lost? Either the data, the means of recording, and retrieval, or changes to the meaning of words?

[@saywhat8966]

Likely all of the above I would guess. Retrieval means have to be saved in a ‘toss and forget ‘em world.’

[@bentspoon1805]

It was a Greek built- city, later taken over by the Romans.

[@nhansen197]

I can't help but wonder why they haven't tried MRI imaging. If it works, they'd be able to peal apart the scrolls virtually with no damage done to the original object.

[@danpetitpas]

That's what they're doing now. But there's a lot of work that still needs to be done on that process.

[@AnonYmous-wu9di]

A,digital library "living forever" -- really? Try reading a 6250 bpi tape from the 70's, a dat tape from the 90s, talking to a RAID drive, reading a DVD. You're delusional. Nothing digital outlasts even a decade, let alone centuries or millenia.

[@phillipstroll7385]

Agreed 100% I can't even get my files from open from ten years ago. Record them on acid free 100% cotton or linen rag paper. Even as digital libraries we don't have access to them. Jstor illegaly owns most information tax payers fund to preserve, translate, recover, etc. It's a damn shame. Our taxes pay for this work. Copies should be in every major public library in every major city throughout the world.

[@MakerBoyOldBoy]

The Smithsonian and other archival museums discovered this decades ago and realized the only current method to ensure longevity was to use acid free rag stock. Ironic that we're using the same materials employed millenia past as the best for the future.

[@yourtravelgal7821]

But…. It’s also okay to be wrong, there’s no reason to call out every wrong opinion or tidbit unless it helps your ego feel better by putting others down, then by all means, just keep doing you! 🤯

[@haroldbridges515]

The medium will fail, but unlimited copies of the data can be made with error-checking, so what is the problem?

[@joebombero1]

Agreed. Hittite libraries, baked clay tablets, seem the best option.

[@Maria-ln3xc]

❤❤❤

[@howardholt3530]

Have we found stories previously revered to but lost?

[@danpetitpas]

No. Just philosophical texts.

[@user-wb9vz3dt5y]

What could be in a library in a rich mans house? I'm guessing stories and philosophy? But we do have ancient stories like homer so how did we actually get homer?

[@GenXstacker]

Good question that you can research: Originally these works were copied by professional scribes and maintained at ancient libraries (or the private libraries of rich people). As old scrolls wore out, new copies were made. Eventually the book form was invented and the contents of the scrolls were recorded in books made of long lasting material like vellum (animal skin). This material is so durable that we still have manuscripts in existence that were made over a thousand years ago (like the Book of Kells from c. 800 AD).

[@kimbo99]

Travelling bards. With stunning verbal memories. Entertainers with musical instruments.

[@danpetitpas]

Just philosophical texts. The Romans loved the Odyssey and the Iliad of Homer and there were many copies made. A lot of monks enjoyed those stories too so those were preserved. The Arabs kept a lot of Greek works "in print" and during the Crusades, those texts came back to Europe to be "rediscovered."

[@MikeJ-pw7ig]

Mist with milk, wrap in a moist napkin and microwave for 20 seconds, works everytime!

[@batuffolinabianca]

Actually, it has been shown that the eruption took place not in August but in the Fall (likely October)

[@hardhead5700]

Where did they get the kangaroos from?

[@NungurnerJetty]

erm, Australia ? If you are puzzling over the timeline, the exchange of papyri for kangaroos took place in the Regency Period 1811-1820. This was when the future George IV was appointed Prince Regent to act on behalf of the ailing George III. The First Fleet set up shop in Sydney Cove in 1788.

[@NewMediaFormat]

Scan Them.

[@phillipstroll7385]

It wasn't a villa of a wealthy owner. It was a library and a school. Knock it off with the wealthy crap.

[@kimbo99]

Only the wealthy could afford to build and operate a Library. Recall you must make your own pen, make your own ink. Produce your own papyrus sheets from Egyptian reeds. And somehow learn how to read and write. Then you need scribes who can translate foreign languages. So its quite a money backed industry producing and collecting storing scrolls. A sophisticated and appreciative society is needed too.

[@danpetitpas]

It was both. People probably lived there and studied there

[@perry92964]

so all the priceless information is probably just records of who owes money to who and tax records. maybe i dozed off but i didnt here them read any of the scrolls

[@cruisepaige]

Here?

[@kimbo99]

Epicurean philosophy

[@Aberelimar]

From the transcript: For one thing it's not normally considered a good 46:01 archaeological technique to go looking for something in particular. Really? Don't understand that. Aren't all arceological enterprises looking for something in particular? Otherwise you would just stumble over something not yet discovered.

[@KamuiPan]

Why they don't use machine learning to solve the missing text?

[@fleetskipper1810]

At my job, we use machine learning to scan modern English, but the error rate is surprisingly high. Maybe generative AI will improve that process, but we can’t know until we try it.

[@danpetitpas]

@@fleetskipper1810 Right now AI "guesses" what the words might be. I tried Chat GPT on a transcript with a lot of inaudibles and although the AI made some good guesses, they guesses were wrong when I went over the original audio. Close but no cigar just yet.