It's now possible to read hundreds of ancient papyrus scrolls buried nearly 2,000 years ago by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

The new technique uses X-ray phase-contrast tomography. It deciphers the charred, damaged texts of scrolls discovered in an ancient town of Herculaneum without having to unroll them, experts say. Herculaneum and Pompeii were among several Roman towns destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D.

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Experts say the letters on the papyrus are slightly raised in height and X-rays waves that hit the letters are reflected back with a slightly shifted phase compared to the waves that hit the underlying material. By measuring this phase difference, the team was able to reproduce the shape of the letters inside the rolled scrolls.

Some of the texts from what is called the Villa of the Papyri have been deciphered since the 1750s when they were discovered. But many more remain a mystery to science because they were so badly damaged that unrolling the papyrus they were written on would have destroyed them completely.

"The papyri were completely covered in blazing-hot volcanic material," said Vito Mocella, a theoretical scientist at the Institute of Microelectronics and Microsystems in Naples who led the latest project.

One problem with previous attempts to use X-rays to read the scrolls was that the ancient writers used a carbon-based material in their ink.

The researchers said that if the new technique works, it could be used to disclose the secrets of one of the few intact libraries from antiquity.

So far, the team has analyzed six scrolls given to Napoleon Bonaparte as gifts and that are now housed at the French Institute in Paris. They've deciphered some of the Greek letters and words written inside the rolled-up, burned, smashed scrolls.

The most challenging part for researchers is deciphering the words in the innermost layers of the ancient scrolls.

Details of the new technique were explained in the journal, Nature Communications.

TagsMount Vesuvius, ancient papyrus scroll, scrolls, Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79, volcanoes, X-ray phase-contrast tomography, Pompeii