Scientists Say Lead in Ink Could Finally Crack Herculaneum’s Burnt Scrolls—So They Baked a Fake One as a Test
How do you test a theory on how to decipher a priceless archaeological artifact? According to a team of researchers, you pay children to make fake versions of it. A team of scientists has proposed a new approach to reading the famous Herculaneum scrolls: 2,000-year-old texts that are impossible to unroll because Mount Vesuvius burnt them to a crisp in 79 BCE.
- ▪How do you test a theory on how to decipher a priceless archaeological artifact?
- ▪According to a team of researchers, you pay children to make fake versions of it.
- ▪A team of scientists has proposed a new approach to reading the famous Herculaneum scrolls: 2,000-year-old texts that are impossible to unroll because Mount Vesuvius burnt them to a crisp in 79 BCE.
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| Original publisher | Gizmodo |
| Canonical URL | https://gizmodo.com/scientists-say-lead-in-ink-could-finally-crack-herculaneums-burnt-scrolls-so-they-baked-a-fake-one-as-a-test-2000813613 |
| Publication time | Fri, 18 Sep 2026 13:30:54 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-09-18T13:33:45.355Z |
| Last seen | 2026-09-18T13:33:45.355Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
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| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | DhqUb57YvSXb · 1 stories |
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| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
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Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
How do you test a theory on how to decipher a priceless archaeological artifact? According to a team of researchers, you pay children to make fake versions of it. A team of scientists has proposed a new approach to reading the famous Herculaneum scrolls: 2,000-year-old texts that are impossible to unroll because Mount Vesuvius burnt them to a crisp in 79 BCE. They suggest looking for lead in the ink. In a study published yesterday in the journal PLOS ONE, the team writes that even small amounts of lead in the ink make letters highly detectable to X-ray CT (an imaging technique).
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