The Biblioteca Nazionale in Naples is one of Italy's largest libraries, housing over a million books and manuscripts. Among its collections, the Herculaneum Papyri stand out as some of the most significant artifacts in Roman archaeology. These carbonized scrolls were buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD and rediscovered in the mid-eighteenth century. Early attempts to open them often resulted in damage, but advancements in technology have brought new hope. A priest named Antonio Piaggio developed a method to peel back the outer layers of the scrolls, which, despite its successes, led to many scrolls disintegrating. Traditionally, scholars focused on the fragments from these scrolls. However, new technological breakthroughs are changing this. Scholars at the Naples library, including Dr. Federica Nicolardi, are employing cutting-edge tools to virtually reconstruct the papyri. This includes Maque-IT, a software tool aiding in the process of reassembling the fragmented texts. Read moreSection: ArtifactsAncient WritingsOther ArtifactsVideosRead Later