Unlocking the scrolls of Herculaneum

[crich70]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Since the scrolls are so fragile, any reading method that involves unrolling them (actually breaking bits off them) is destructive. It's why the CT scan was such a good idea. Such a shame it hasn't worked.

I hope someone comes up with a way to read them without physically unrolling them.

Yeah, it does sound like the Dead Sea Scrolls are in pristine condition in comparison.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by crich70

Yeah, it does sound like the Dead Sea Scrolls are in pristine condition in comparison.

Yes! The Herculaneum scrolls are essentially complex lumps of charcoal.

[fjtorres]

We're "reading" the DNA from 50,000 year old chunks of bone and finding entire lost races. We'll figure out how to scan those lumps of carbon soon enough.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

We're "reading" the DNA from 50,000 year old chunks of bone and finding entire lost races. We'll figure out how to scan those lumps of carbon soon enough.

Maybe some kind alien who's into reading will drop by long enough to show us how to do it

[kennyc]

Ha! It was the aliens that burned them?

[crich70]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Ha! It was the aliens that burned them?

All part of their insidious plot to spread disinformation and create phantom conspiracies.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Maybe some kind alien who's into reading will drop by long enough to show us how to do it

Probably just to tell us that they are locked by DRM and the store that sold them has gone out of business...

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by sabredog

Probably just to tell us that they are locked by DRM and the store that sold them has gone out of business...

Incendiary DRM.

[GeoffC]

The internal battery will have depleted by now?

[crich70]

Originally Posted by sabredog

Probably just to tell us that they are locked by DRM and the store that sold them has gone out of business...

Not just the store but the publisher as well. These books won't be having their copyright renewed any time soon.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by crich70

Not just the store but the publisher as well. These books won't be having their copyright renewed any time soon.

You think? The translations of any recovered works will certainly be in copyright.

And I wouldn't put it past some UK lawyer to argue that a recovered text from the scrolls is a posthumous unpublished work by an author who died before 1918, and so is in copyright in the UK until 1st January 2040.

But I don't think they could pull such a trick in the US, where the maximum copyright length now, even for unpublished works, is 70 years after the authors death, or 120 years after their creation, both of which have certainly passed. (Although they might have gained a copyright until 1st January 2048 if they could have published before 1st January 2003.)

[crich70]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

You think? The translations of any recovered works will certainly be in copyright.

And I wouldn't put it past some UK lawyer to argue that a recovered text from the scrolls is a posthumous unpublished work by an author who died before 1918, and so is in copyright in the UK until 1st January 2040.

But I don't think they could pull such a trick in the US, where the maximum copyright length now, even for unpublished works, is 70 years after the authors death, or 120 years after their creation, both of which have certainly passed. (Although they might have gained a copyright until 1st January 2048 if they could have published before 1st January 2003.)

Maybe the translations, but not the original tongue I'd guess. Who knows when they will be released though. Of course some legal eagle could point out that there is no way to be sure that (book title) by (author's name) was really written by them some 2000 yrs ago and therefore isn't a forgery or still in copyright. lol

[sabredog]

Unless written by an indie scholar published by Amazonium?

I am sure I read somewhere that the cost of membership of the Scholars and Scribes Guild of the Greater Roman Empire was quite expensive per annum which kept the cost of scrolls artificially high...Thus a big market for indie stuff

They were always griping about unregistered parchment pushers....

[crich70]

Originally Posted by sabredog

Unless written by an indie scholar published by Amazonium?

I am sure I read somewhere that the cost of membership of the Scholars and Scribes Guild of the Greater Roman Empire was quite expensive per annum which kept the cost of scrolls artificially high...Thus a big market for indie stuff

They were always griping about unregistered parchment pushers....

And then the middle ages hit and brought the black death which reduced the number of scribes, who then started charging more and more, which led to Gutenberg inventing his movable type so that things could be printed out rather than being copied by hand. I imagine if it is ever possible to restore them the scrolls will be priceless.