Beginning to read an ancient library

There has been a recent breakthrough in reading the charred remains of papyri discovered in a library in Herculanium. It was covered by hot ash from Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. I have heard about this years ago and have followed the story of the efforts to read the scrolls from time to time. Using phase contrast X-ray imaging individual letters and in a few cases whole words have been worked out from the scrolls. This has the potential to add new missing works from the ancient world. The scrolls are a burned mess and at first seem like a lost cause. (image link)

 

Here is an image of the Greek alphabet from the scrolls.

 And a link to the original article.