Ancient scrolls give up secrets

_{Photo: E Brun (from flscience.com)}

Metallic ink was used to inscribe scrolls regarded as an archaeological wonder, BBC News reports, citing a recent scientific finding.

The discovery pushes back the date for the first use of metallic ink by several centuries.

The Herculaneum scrolls were buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79 and are charred and fragile.

Previous efforts to read them, over many centuries, has damaged or destroyed some of the scrolls.

The task of reading the surviving scrolls has fallen to scientists using technology such as the European synchrotron, which produces X-rays 100 billion times brighter than the X-rays used in hospitals.

Last year, physicists used the 3D X-ray imaging technique to decipher writing in the scrolls.

Now they have gleaned that the papyrus contains high levels of lead, which they say could only have come from its intentional use in the ink.

"We found some metal - some lead - in the ink, which is supposed to come four centuries after," said Dr Emmanuel Brun of the European Synchrotron in Grenoble, France.

"The common belief is that the Romans introduced metal in the ink in the fourth century."

Until now, it was thought that the ink used for the manuscripts was carbon-based.

Now they have gleaned that the papyrus contains high levels of lead, which they say could only have come from its intentional use in the ink.

"We found some metal - some lead - in the ink, which is supposed to come four centuries after," said Dr Emmanuel Brun of the European Synchrotron in Grenoble, France.

"The common belief is that the Romans introduced metal in the ink in the fourth century."

Until now, it was thought that the ink used for the manuscripts was carbon-based.