Daily-ist: Tuesday

Out of the Ashes: Recovering the Only Library of the Classical World

A Lecture Presented by Roger Macfarlane, Ph.D., Brigham Young University

Visit the Museum of Natural Science tonight @ 6:30 p.m. as they welcome Roger Macfarlane, Ph.D. from Brigham Young University to lecture on the surviving library of Pompeii.

When the eruption of Mount Vesuvius buried the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 A.D., it not only froze an ancient civilization, it also preserved the only surviving library from antiquity.

For 250 years, scholars have struggled to unroll and read a collection of 1,800 carbonized and crumbling papyrus scrolls found in the wealthy Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. In the 21st century, promising new multispectral imaging technologies—enlisted by the National Library in Naples and Brigham Young University—reveal text that has not been seen for 2,000 years.

Ironically, the destructive force of the volcanic eruption that buried Pompeii and Herculaneum preserved this collection of papyri; the library probably would have deteriorated if it hadn't been carbonized and sealed under volcanic material.

Roger Macfarlane, Ph.D. of the Brigham Young University Herculaneum Papyrus Project will tell the incredible story of how the team of scholars turned “coal to scroll” to unlock the secrets of the Herculaneum papyri, and what the secrets revealed.
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tonight, Tuesday, July 10th | 6:30pm
Houston Museum of Natural Science
Tickets | $12 members / $15 nonmembers

img: flicker user ndalls