After the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. dessimated the Roman town of Herculaneum, it was completely lost to the world for around 1700 years. At the time of its rediscovery, an excavation worker noticed writing on what appeared to be charcoal. Hundreds of these pieces of “charcoal” had been thrown into a trash heap. In all between 1800 - 2000 scrolls were saved from the library at Herculaneum. There is a building at the site known as the Villa of the Papyri that housed these priceless ancient texts.

In 1999 BYU joined the ongoing project to save and preserve the contents of these incredible scrolls that is housed in a Naples laboratory. Scholars are attempting to recover and preserve the contents of these valuable pieces of information about Roman society and culture.(1) “CPART—and its sponsoring institution, BYU's Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) —became involved in the Herculaneum project at the request of its longtime director Professor Marcello Gigante, formerly of the University of Naples, who was impressed with CPART's imaging studies of burned scrolls in Petra, Jordan.” (2) CPART is attempting to create a digital library from the ashes of this fantastic ancient collection. To read more about this project see the article entitled A Library of Mud and Ashes by Julie H. Walker that appeared in the Spring 2001 issue of BYU Magazine.

References
1. BYU.EDU/CPART/Herculaneum
2. Walker, Julie H. A Library of Mud and Ashes.BYU Magazine, Spring 2001.