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 now considered the “only library from the ancient world”. This collection of papyrus scrolls originally hails from the Herculaneum Villa dei Papiri ("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 60 feet of ash, mud, and layers of volcanic material. 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, Oplontis, and Stabiae. The pyroclastic flows that blanketed the Herculaneum Villa of the Papyri consequently carbonized and preserved its contents for two millennia, while furtively concealing the majority from looters.

Ground plan of the Herculaneum Villa of the Papyri published by Comparetti and De Petra and drawn by Karl Jakob Weber circa 1750 to 1758. This detailed excavation map with outlined tunnels remains the modern top reference for the villa's structure, and it was used as a reference for the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, California.

Excavations and Present Locations

A number of archaeological excavations and consequent discoveries took place in Italy from 1752 to the 1990s, bringing the total presently-known collection to approximately 1,826 papyri. In 2016, a group of scholars—headed by Robert Fowler, the professor of Greek at the University of Bristol—addressed an open letter to the Italian authorities warning that further excavations are crucial in a race against prospective findings’ deterioration.

Due to geographic dispersal through the transfer of scrolls or fragments as diplomatic gifts in the 1800s, the fragments are now located in Italy’s Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, the Institut de France, Oxford University’s Bodleian Libraries, and the British Library. The scrolls’ political migrations prove a widespread recognition of the Herculaneum papyri as objects of cultural and material value—even when their charred text was indecipherable to early technologies.

Databases and Catalogues

The British Library offers public access to high-quality imaging of seven Herculaneum fragments deriving from a 1st-century BCE work written by the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. The papyrus fragments entered the British Museum’s collection in 1906 upon Edward VII’s presentation.

Chartes is an updated, digital Italian database for the Herculean Papyri first published by the International Center for the Study of Herculaneum Papyri in 2005 under the ISBN 9788890764400. Searches can be conducted under numerous categories, including by papyri or images. The comprehensive database includes high-definition imaging, as well as author, artifact state, unwinder identification, bibliography, and dimensions of fragments.

The Thesaurus Herculanensium Voluminum is a full-text German database of Herculaneum papyri spearheaded by the Centro Internazionale per lo Studio dei Papiri Ercolanesi, the Chair for Classical Philology I at the University of Würzburg, Gianluca Del Mastros, and Holger Essler from 2008 to 2013. The website contains approximately 149 recorded, searchable texts and 268 inventory numbers. Its papyri are organized by author and link to the following source. Retrieved from the Herculaneum Society resource list.

The Duke Collaboratory for Classics Computing & the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World’s website “Papyri.info” provides a database and transcriptions of Herculaneum papyri from worldwide compilation. It offers in-text transcriptions of acquired papyri, separated by fragments and linked to respective engravings, sketchings, and publications for additional context. Retrieved from the Herculaneum Society resource list.

The Würzburg Center for Epicurean Research offers digitized representations of their engravings published in Herculanensium Voluminum Quae Supersunt (Collectio Prior) and Herculanensium Voluminum Quae Supersunt Collectio Altera. Retrieved from the Herculaneum Society resource list.

Trismegistos’ Leuven Database of Ancient Books offers comprehensive information on relevant Herculaneum papyri—including provenance, timestamp, related publications, collections, script, authors, and genre.

Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford offers public access to digital imaging of their collection of original papyri fragments, bestowed to Oxford University by the Prince of Wales in 1810.

The Oxford Facsimiles of the Herculaneum Papyri (“PHerc collection”) contains high-resolution and low-resolution imaging of a host of facsimiles, made available through Bodleian Libraries and searchable by numerous identifiers. Retrieved from the Herculaneum Society resource list.

The National Library of Naples’ digital library offers “facsimilar transcriptions,” or precisely-drawn digital reproductions, of a comprehensive index of numerically-identified Herculaneum papyri. Significantly, some of these copies immortalize portions of writing that have since deteriorated on the original artifacts. This project was originally curated by the Mediatheque of the National Library of Naples (2010-2012). Retrieved from the Herculaneum Society resource list.

The German Würzburg Center for Epicurean Research displays preserved sketches of pre-experiment papyri fragments dating back to the possession of King George IV and commissioned chemist Humphry Davy in 1819. Images are supplied by the Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019 and available for public download.

Researchers at the University of Liège state on their CEDOPAL/MP3 website that their database will soon include the capacity to search for “new categories of Greek and Latin papyri” including Herculaneum papyri.