The Herculaneum Scrolls

A Brief History

The Herculaneum papyri—upwards of 1,800 largely-philosophical texts on scrolls dated to the 18th century—comprise what is considered the “only surviving library in antiquity”. This collection of papyrus scrolls originally hails from the Herculaneum Villa of the Papyri, an estate in the ancient Roman city on present-day Italy’s Bay of Naples. The Villa of the Papyri is famous for its contents' carbonization and consequent preservation resulting from the eruption of nearby Mount Vesuvius on August 24, A.D. 79. In the aftermath of a 10-mile cloud projection of ash and pumice into the stratosphere, the city of Herculaneum was buried under approximately 16 meters of ash layers. Due to Herculaneum’s more favorable proximity from winds on the coast and west of Mount Vesuvius, its artifacts were sheltered from the worst of the same 18-hour eruption that similarly ravaged Pompeii. The pyroclastic flows that blanketed the Herculaneum Villa of the Papyri consequently carbonized and preserved its contents for two millennia, while furtively concealing it from intruders or looters.