Scientists ’virtually unravel’ burnt 16th century scroll

Scientists are on the look-out for damaged and unreadable ancient scrolls as brand new techniques have revealed the hidden text inside a severely burnt 16th century sample. The new development, the latest in a long line of advancements in the field in recent years, has shown how 'virtual unravelling' can be achieved using a more autonomous approach and with scrolls that contain multiple pages. Similarly, the new computer techniques can now handle very large data sets and deal with more complex shapes and sizes. This has been demonstrated by virtually unravelling a 16th century scroll from Diss Heywood Manor in Norwich, which was left severely charred, damaged and fused together with no possible way of physically opening the scroll without destroying it. The scroll, which was 270mm wide, would have contained information on life in the manor and included details on land transactions, disturbances of the peace, payment of fines, names of jurors and information on the upkeep of land. Researchers at Cardiff University have been refining their technique since they first revealed the hidden text of a scroll from Bressingham Manor over five years ago. Their technique, which involves collaborators from the UK and across the world, firstly involves using x-ray tomography, usually reserved for use in the medical field, to create thousands of thin cross sections of the scroll.