Scientists discover a way to read burnt scrolls from 1500 years ago.

A burned 1,500-year-old Hebrew scroll found on the shore of the Dead Sea was recently deciphered, 45 years after archaeologists discovered it, researchers in Israel have announced.  The parchment scroll was so charred that it was illegible to the naked eye. Only with advanced technology did the scroll reveal the opening verses of the book of Leviticus, the third book of the Hebrew Bible.

The fire damage to the Ein Gedi scrolls made them impossible to open, so the IAA worked with scientists from Israel and abroad to scan the scrolls with a microcomputed tomography machine (micro-CT), which is "just like what they do in the doctor's office but at a very high resolution, probably a hundred times more accurate than the medical procedures that we do," said Brent Seales, a professor of computer science at the University of Kentucky. Seales analyzed the scans with a digital imaging software that virtually unrolled the scroll and allowed him to visualize the text.

That's one burnt scroll, seemingly beyond reading.

The scrolls were unearthed in Ein Gedi, which translates to "Spring of the Goat," a desert oasis on the western shore of the Dead Sea, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southeast of Jerusalem. Based on ruins of a Chalcolithic, or early Bronze Age, sanctuary dating to the year 4000 B.C., Ein Gedi's first known residents established themselves there about 5,000 years ago.

The oasis is notable in the Bible as the site where King David fled to escape the jealous and vengeful King Saul. David survived and eventually succeeded Saul as King of Israel from around 1010 to 970 B.C.

Ein Gedi "was completely burnt to the ground, and none of its inhabitants ever returned to reside there again, or to pick through the ruins in order to salvage valuable property," Porath said. During archaeological excavations of the burned synagogue, researchers found fragments of the burned scrolls; a bronze, seven-branched candelabrum (or menorah); the community's money box holding 3,500 coins, glass and ceramic oil lamps; and perfume vessels, Porath explained.

"We have no information regarding the cause of the fire, but speculation about the destruction ranges from bedouin raiders from the region east of the Dead Sea to conflicts with the Byzantine government," Porath said.

This technique may be useful in deciphering similar scrolls found in a library in Pompeii, Italy, which are similarly scorched from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed that city.