The Herculaneum papyri are ancient papyrus scrolls carbonized during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, originating from the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum. During an excavation campaign sponsored by the House of Bourbon in the mid-18th century, hundreds of blackened and fragile scrolls were discovered; though they initially appeared to be mere pieces of charcoal, these artifacts turned out to be the remains of a valuable collection of Greek and Latin texts that formed the villa’s library.
During the eruption, the papyri were not fully carbonized by the pyroclastic flow, but instead underwent a process of partial combustion. The intense heat of the eruption (300–350°C / 572–590°F), while irreparably damaging the scrolls, prevented their natural decomposition over time, making possible the preservation and survival of these volumina to the present day. The texts recovered from the papyri consist largely of Epicurean philosophical works, among which the extensive writings of Philodemus of Gadara—the most heavily represented author in the Herculaneum collection—stand out. His treatises on ethics, rhetoric, theology, and poetics provide a unique record of otherwise lost works and serve as an indispensable source for the study of ancient Epicureanism. Today, the scrolls are housed at the “Vittorio Emanuele III” National Library of Naples within the “M. Gigante” Herculaneum Papyri Workshop, where scholars and researchers continue working to restore and decipher these priceless witnesses of the past.
Scholars continue their efforts to restore and decipher these precious testaments to history, aided by cutting-edge technologies such as multispectral imaging and micro-computed tomography, which are now enabling researchers to virtually unroll and read the collection’s still-unopened scrolls.
Dr. Maria Chiara Robustelli
Bibliography:
- M. Capasso, Manuale di Papirologia Ercolanese (Galatina 1991)
- M. Gigante, Filodemo in Italia (Firenze 1990)
- F. Longo Auricchio, G. Indelli, G. Leone, G. Del Mastro, La Villa dei Papiri. Una residenza antica e la sua biblioteca (Roma 2020)
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