Write like an Egyptian!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
For ancient Egyptians, that would be on papyrus! Folded up. Argh. How do you unwrap fragile scrolls, without destroying them?
Enter Egyptologist Verena Lepper of Humboldt University in Berlin. Her team used high powered X-ray beams to take detailed—cell level—images of folded papyrus. They reconstructed these images into a 3D simulation, “unfolding” them via computer algorithm. The ancient scroll goes from folded to flat—no touching!
The x-rays revealed faint traces of colored ink on the unfolded papyrus. Too faded for the naked eye, these colored inks used metals, like copper, which react differently to x-rays than carbon-based papyrus. Additional x-ray techniques helped researchers reconstruct the written characters!
Talk about unfolding your papyrus and reading it too!
Reference: Mahnke, H.-E., Arlt, T., Baum, D., Hege, H.-C., Herter, F., Lindow, N., Manke, I., Tzulia Siopi, Menei, E., Etienne, M., & Lepper, V. (2020). Virtual unfolding of folded papyri. Journal of Cultural Heritage, 41, 264–269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.culher.2019.07.007