In the 1750s, well diggers broke into a buried Roman Villa near Herculaneum: What looked like charcoal turned out to be ancient books

While the workers dug tunnels through the hard volcanic soil around the city of Herculaneum during the mid-eighteenth century, they were certainly not looking for literature. The layers they were digging through were those formed as a result of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, which covered the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum under ash and pumice.

And there were odd black clumps.

Initially, the objects appeared to be neither manuscripts nor papyrus rolls; they seemed to be charcoal rather than documents of any kind. Later, however, researchers understood that what they were holding was a discovery of unimaginable value – a unique collection of ancient Roman manuscripts that survived for centuries under layers of volcanic destruction.


Thus, according to the Bodleian Library, the papyrus rolls discovered during the excavations were acknowledged to be the only preserved library from classical antiquity. This is confirmed by UNESCO, where the excavation site is mentioned as a place where "more than 1,800 papyrus scrolls [were] recovered from the Villa of the Papyri."

It is remarkable that it was the same eruption that both annihilated and preserved the ancient library.

How destruction became preservation

The eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE destroyed Herculaneum completely. However, unlike ordinary decay, the volcano entombed the city under layers of substances, which minimized exposure to moisture, air, and environmental degradation.

As UNESCO describes Herculaneum and Pompeii as a World Heritage site, the organic objects found there were exceptionally well-preserved for their kind. The scrolls of papyrus in the Villa of the Papyri became arguably the best-preserved example among them.

The documents were certainly not preserved in gentle conditions. They were carbonized through high temperatures. But this very change in condition saved them from destruction over time.

This is one of the strangest paradoxes in the history of archaeology. The event that wiped out the library from people’s minds left it untouched in its entirety.

In any case, without the eruption, the documents could not exist today.

Why the Villa of the Papyri matters so much

Fragments are common to ancient literature, where historians rely on reconstructed texts, copies of manuscripts, quotations by others, and damaged inscriptions handed down throughout the centuries. The Herculaneum library is unique in this regard.

Not just fragments, but actually an assembly of books was unearthed in an ancient Roman villa. According to UNESCO, there are more than 1,800 papyrus documents discovered in the library; thus, the find is no longer a novelty but an invaluable source of information on Roman intellectual history.

It is significant for historical reasons. The discovery allows historians insight into the reading habits of elites at the very beginning of the Roman Empire. Although many documents have been hard to decipher or incomprehensible altogether, the existence of a library collection makes a significant contribution to historical knowledge about the nature of private libraries.

As mentioned by the Bodleian Library regarding the Herculaneum scrolls, no other ancient library has managed to survive in such an integrated condition.

This is the reason why the Herculaneum library is so compelling for us today.

The problem scholars could not solve for centuries

The thrill of discovering the scrolls soon met with an additional dilemma: reading them could destroy them.

The charred scrolls had become very delicate. Efforts to physically unroll some of the scrolls led to damage or destruction of parts of the writing material. Scholars were confronted with this dilemma generation after generation. The library was saved, yet much of its content was out of reach.

This explains why the tale still unfolds even today.

As per the Getty Museum coverage of scroll imaging at Herculaneum, modern non-invasive imaging techniques are assisting scholars to uncover text in unopened scrolls without having to unroll them.

Equally interesting, as per the University of Cambridge coverage, digital reconstruction and scanning efforts are beginning to reveal text that has been hidden for almost two millennia.

To put it differently, the library is being discovered twice, once by the excavators of the eighteenth century digging through volcanic rock, and again through modern technology able to read what human hands cannot safely unfold.

Why does the story still capture people today?

The Herculaneum scrolls continue to fascinate due to the dramatic quality of the images involved.

Shelves buried underground. Books burned to ashes. The library of an entire Roman civilization is encapsulated within volcanic ash deposits.

In today’s context, where books are stored in temperature-controlled environments and carefully protected from deterioration, it is a reversal of the ordinary process of preservation.

This paradox is what makes the story relevant and fascinating beyond the realms of archaeology.

The laborers who were excavating the hardened volcanic layer assumed they were dealing with burnt-out material; little did they know that they were unearthing one of the most remarkable literary relics of antiquity, which was so badly damaged that the technology of the future would be struggling to decipher its contents.