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To read 2,000-year-old burned scrolls, scientists burn their own (news.berkeley.edu)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/science@lemmy.world
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[–] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Sounds promising, but it didn't seem clear from the article whether there is any particular reason to expect to find much lead or another metal in the Vesuvius scrolls' ink. I guess somebody found one fragment that had some, which is not nothing, but fingers crossed that it was common.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    The article says they sourced “traditional lampblack ink”. I would assume that it’s pretty similar to what they were using elsewhere at the time.

    But you are right, the article also gave the impression that the vast majority of the scrolls would have been using carbon ink.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    It certainly seems promising, and I am like a moth to a flame with anything involving recovering lost texts, but I feel like we've done some interesting reporting on the horse before checking to see if the cart has anything in it. :-)

    No need to shit on dreams, yet, though. I really do hope this leads to a breakthrough, because I believe the previous scanning methods relied on actual physical differences (e.g. tiny stylus scratches) rather than the ink. This could be a huge shortcut.

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