| Title |
Revealing letters in rolled Herculaneum papyri by X-ray phase-contrast imaging
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Nature Communications, January 2015
|
| DOI | 10.1038/ncomms6895 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Vito Mocella, Emmanuel Brun, Claudio Ferrero, Daniel Delattre |
| Abstract |
Hundreds of papyrus rolls, buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD and belonging to the only library passed on from Antiquity, were discovered 260 years ago at Herculaneum. These carbonized papyri are extremely fragile and are inevitably damaged or destroyed in the process of trying to open them to read their contents. In recent years, new imaging techniques have been developed to read the texts without unwrapping the rolls. Until now, specialists have been unable to view the carbon-based ink of these papyri, even when they could penetrate the different layers of their spiral structure. Here for the first time, we show that X-ray phase-contrast tomography can reveal various letters hidden inside the precious papyri without unrolling them. This attempt opens up new opportunities to read many Herculaneum papyri, which are still rolled up, thus enhancing our knowledge of ancient Greek literature and philosophy. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 132 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 15 | 11% |
| United Kingdom | 11 | 8% |
| Spain | 6 | 5% |
| Germany | 5 | 4% |
| Australia | 5 | 4% |
| Canada | 4 | 3% |
| Italy | 4 | 3% |
| Japan | 3 | 2% |
| India | 3 | 2% |
| Other | 14 | 11% |
| Unknown | 62 | 47% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Members of the public | 108 | 82% |
| Scientists | 18 | 14% |
| Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 5 | 4% |
| Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 1 | <1% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 112 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Portugal | 1 | <1% |
| Germany | 1 | <1% |
| France | 1 | <1% |
| Japan | 1 | <1% |
| United States | 1 | <1% |
| Unknown | 107 | 96% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 27 | 24% |
| Researcher | 22 | 20% |
| Student > Master | 12 | 11% |
| Student > Bachelor | 9 | 8% |
| Professor > Associate Professor | 6 | 5% |
| Other | 12 | 11% |
| Unknown | 24 | 21% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Arts and Humanities | 19 | 17% |
| Physics and Astronomy | 13 | 12% |
| Materials Science | 11 | 10% |
| Chemistry | 9 | 8% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 8 | 7% |
| Other | 24 | 21% |
| Unknown | 28 | 25% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 996. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 14 February 2024.
All research outputs
#16,401
of 25,595,500 outputs
Outputs from Nature Communications
#322
of 57,749 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#122
of 361,150 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Nature Communications
#1
of 683 outputs
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