Overview
- The study published September 16 recreated ancient-style papyrus, wrote on it with inks that had varying lead levels, carbonized the rolls, and then CT-scanned them to test detectability.
- Researchers found that even small amounts of lead in ink produce a strong, element-specific X-ray signal that makes letters far easier to spot with X-ray CT.
- The team showed that inexpensive handheld X-ray fluorescence (XRF) devices reliably detect lead in the replicas, offering a fast, non-destructive way to screen scrolls for leaded ink.
- Using CT plus virtual unrolling and AI, the group reconstructed readable text from the burned replicas, but they stress that real Herculaneum inks vary and many scrolls may lack metal.
- No systematic, conservator-approved lead screening of the Naples collection has been done yet, so the method is a promising triage tool but must be tested on real scrolls to address contamination, ink variability, and conservation limits.