An insight into the study of Herculaneum papyri through advanced non-invasive imaging techniques

The Herculaneum papyri have attracted considerable attention ever since their discovery in the XVIII century in Villa dei Papiri. This was not only because of the way they were preserved during the Vesuvius eruption in 79 A.D., but above all because of their historical content. Indeed, the knowledge of philosophical Greek schools studied so far is contained in the Herculaneum papyrus scrolls, some of which have been unrolled mechanically using the Piaggio machine. However, their appearance poses a challenge to the readability and interpretation of the manuscript given their fragile state of conservation. The ERC Advanced Grant 885222 - “GreekSchools” project focuses on defining a new protocol with optical methods to improve the analysis of the text and thus enable a new critical edition of the entire treatise of Philodemus’ Arrangement of the Philosophers. Therefore, to unveil the hidden text on the verso, but also to locate the overlapping layers and recover the text within them, advanced non-invasive techniques covering various spectral regions have been chosen, such as Macro X-Ray Fluorescence Imaging (MA-XRF), Shortwave-Infrared Hyperspectral Imaging (SWIR HSI), high-resolution digital microscopy, and technical photography in the visible (VIS), ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR) regions. This work will report preliminary results and important achievements in the process of layouting of papyrus scrolls.