First scans of the Herculaneum papyri

The EDUCE team from the University of Kentucky are currently in Paris at the Institut de France where they are scanning unopened papyri from Herculaneum. See their blog for a full description of what they're doing, with regular updates, and the images they've posted on Flickr. In their own words, they aim:

'to use cutting-edge technology in an attempt to create readable images of text from ancient papyrus scrolls without opening them. Using minimally invasive scanning and virtual unwrapping, the team will seek to examine the interior structure of carbonized scrolls buried by the 79AD eruption of the volcano Vesuvius that also covered the city of Pompeii.'