Seth M. Reynolds and Dr. Roger Macfarlane, Humanities, Classics and Comparative Literature
In 1999 CPART began working with the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples to create a database of the unique materials which they possessed. These are the remains of the papyri which were found in the archaeological excavations of Herculaneum. Herculaneum was a town along the Bay of Naples which was destroyed in the same eruption that buried Pompeii. However, the eruption destroyed these two towns in different ways. Whereas Pompeii was buried in layers of pumice and ash, Herculaneum was buried in a super-heated landslide known as a pyroclastic flow. These different modes of destruction led to different modes of preservation. In Herculaneum the pyroclastic flow killed all of these bacteria and other micro-organisms which cause decay so organic materials were preserved. The most important of these materials was the papyri.
In 1753 excavations led to the discovery of a Roman villa near Herculaneum. This villa contained many papyri in addition to the statues and mosaics which were normally found during excavations. Today the collection is numbered as having over 1800 items. These items include small papyrus fragments about the size of your hand, whole sheets of text, and even entire rolls of papyri. Although this was a great discovery, there were some difficulties with these papyri; they were badly burnt during by the pyroclastic flow. Also, since they had been covered in a think layer of sediment for years, the scrolls had become tightly packed.
The early curator of this collection developed two main methods to deal with this second obstacle. The second, and more praised method, was a slow and painstaking process of unrolling which would take maybe two years to complete. The process gave us most of the sizeable pieces of papyri which can be viewed at the Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples today. But these lengths of papyri were still difficult to read since they were charred. This problem was significantly improved by the work of CPART. The development of multi-spectral imaging from technology invented at the NASA jet propulsion laboratory enabled Steve Booras to create a very useful collection of images.
The other method of unrolling was developed by Camillo Paderni. This method was to soak the scrolls in wine for a while and then cut them in half with a very sharp knife. After the scroll was thus divided, Paderni would copy by hand whatever letters he could see on the papyrus. Then he would proceed to carefully scrape the top most layer of the scroll away to reveal the next layer of papyrus. Because of this the original scroll does not exist, but only the handmade facsimiles. These handmade facsimiles are know as disegni (singular disegno). These disegni make up a voluminous collection within the Biblioteca Nazionale and are a major resource for those who research the Herculaneum papyri.
Because of the value of these disegni the BYU Herculaneum Papyrus Project, led by Dr. Roger T. Macfarlane, decided they should create a database these as well. This project involved two trips to Italy to image all of the materials. On the first trip I, along with graduate students Nick and Julie Fredricks, became familiar with the Biblioteca Nazionale and its staff, learned a great deal about Herculaneum, developed a naming system for our database, and scanned about 45% of the disegni.
On the second trip I was invited to go to Oxford to speak with Dirk Obbink, a prominent scholar in this field, about what BYU was doing with their papyrological collection and the techniques we used to improve it. While there I also was learn about Oxford’s Oxyrhynchus Project and attend some of their meetings discussing archiving issues. Additionally I was allowed to see some of the papyri which were in this collection.
After this I met up with Chris Haney, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, in Paris and we discussed similar issues with Dr. Daniel Delattre and Laurent Capron, papyrologists at the Sorbonne. Then we went to Naples to finish the digitization of the Neapolitan disegni. We were able to work faster than expected and as a result we were able to digitize more than just the disegni. We were also able to digitize some documents kept in the curators’ archive. As well, the additional time allowed us to visit several more archaeological sites than we had anticipated.
As a result of this project BYU has forged intellectual links with Oxford and the Sorbonne. In addition, BYU now has the most comprehensive collection of Herculaneum papyrus images of anywhere in the world beside the Biblioteca Nazionale. Also, this collection ensures that these priceless and irreplaceable materials will not be lost. But perhaps the most important result of this project is that these materials can now be easily disseminated all over the world. This will increase the amount of scholarship which can be done on these documents.
The remnants of the scrolls unrolled by Camillo Paderni, discussed below, were also imaged using this technology, but the bulk of what came from his work was the subject of my work at Naples.
For more information about the multi-spectral imaging one may consult CPART’s website, cpart.byu.edu, or contact them through the contact information provided therein.