THIS SUNDAY ON "60 MINUTES": CAN TECHNOLOGY UNRAVEL THE SECRETS SEALED BY MT. VESUVIUS 2,000 YEARS AGO?

Scholars Believe Seared Herculaneum Scrolls Could Contain Early Christian Writings

Like its renowned neighbor Pompeii, the ancient coastal town of Herculaneum was buried by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Yet the lesser-known site has yielded what could be the area's greatest treasure: an ancient library of 1,800 papyrus scrolls, seared shut by the volcanic heat. Scholars believe the damaged scrolls could contain lost works of Greek philosophy or Roman poetry, or the first references to Jesus. Bill Whitaker goes to Italy to report on scientists' efforts to read the scrolls noninvasively, using modern imaging technology. The story will be broadcast Sunday, April 1 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

"There's no archeological site in the world that matches this," says Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, founding director of the Herculaneum Conservation Project. While touring the ruins, Wallace-Hadrill tells Whitaker the volcano's superheated surge, about 80 feet of ash and rock, was just the right temperature to preserve organic matter like furniture, food and the papyrus scrolls. "The paradox is that catastrophic destruction is also exceptionally good preservation," says Wallace-Hadrill.

Among the sites locked in time was a palatial villa that may have belonged to the family of Julius Caesar. The villa's library, which contained the scrolls, remained buried for centuries. In the 18th century, early excavators recovered the scrolls, tempting scholars to try to open them. "The history of the unwrapping of the Herculaneum scrolls is littered with failures," says Brent Seales, a computer scientist from the University of Kentucky. "Everyone that had tried to open the scrolls left behind a hideous trail of fragmentary result."

Now Seales and two Italian scientists are competing to be the first to read the scrolls without unrolling them. Whitaker reports this Sunday on their rivalry-fueled efforts to unravel the centuries old mystery of the Herculaneum scrolls.

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