The contents of a 2,000-year-old burnt scroll from the Roman town of Herculaneum ... and Silicon Valley backers. The thick, paper-like material called papyrus cannot be physically opened as ...

A charred scroll has been digitally deciphered for the first time in 2,000 years after it was buried in the ancient Italian city of Herculaneum following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

which are made from a thick paper-like material called papyrus, were prised open but they crumbled into pieces. The University of Oxford's Bodleian Library holds several of the scrolls.

London — The Herculaneum scrolls have remained one of the many tantalizing mysteries of the ancient world for almost 2,000 years. Burnt to a crisp by lava from Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79 ...