Classics: Home

Image from The Guardian

These discoveries come as the site is struggling to maintain its integrity against the ever increasing influx of tourists which threatens Pompeii's preservation.

Read more at The Guardian's Website.

How do You Read Ancient Scrolls Too Brittle to Unfurl? An American Scientist May Have an Answer    

Image from the Washington Post

Scientists are attempting to digitally read some of the oldest written documents from Western civilization, a collection of scrolls carbonized by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

All previous attempts to physically unfurl the fragile scrolls have resulted in their destruction, so American scientists are scanning them and using a software program to decipher the data and read the scrolls without touching them. The process has worked before on a charred scroll from Israel, but these scrolls pose new challenges.

Read more at The Washington Post.

Searching the Internet

Be sceptical! For every site you find, ask these questions:

• Who made it? Look up credentials of the person or organization responsible.
• When was it posted? Look for a date in the body of the screen or at the bottom.
• Does it include citations of ancient sources? Or modern scholarship?
• Try using Google Advanced Search and choose domain = .edu ( in the lower set of search boxes)
• If appropriate, add museum to your search string
• When you find books through internet searches, look up the title in CBBcat
• When you find articles cited through internet searches, look up the title in OneSearch