Deciphering scrolls with tomography: A training experiment

TL;DR

The paper addresses non-destructive reading of severely damaged ancient manuscripts by introducing a teaching-focused tomography laboratory that replaces X-rays with visible light. It presents a complete workflow from data acquisition using CA phantoms and a rotating setup to a virtual unwrapping pipeline based on $p(s,\theta)$ projections and the Radon transform, culminating in $\text{MIP}$ visualization and text recovery. The main contributions are a replicable educational setup, open-source software (Matlab/Python/Jupyter), and a guided curriculum that connects tomography theory with archaeological text reconstruction. This resource enables undergraduate and maker-audience training in tomography, image reconstruction, and digital restoration, with practical impact on science education and public understanding of archaeological imaging.

Abstract

The recovery of severely damaged ancient written documents has proven to be a major challenge for many scientists, mainly due to the impracticality of physical unwrapping them. Non-destructive techniques, such as X-ray computed tomography (CT), combined with computer vision algorithms, have emerged as a means of facilitating the virtual reading of the hidden contents of the damaged documents. This paper proposes an educational laboratory aimed at simulating the entire process of acquisition and virtual recovery of the ancient works. We have developed an experimental setup that uses visible light to replace the detrimental X-rays, and a didactic software pipeline that allows students to virtually reconstruct a transparent rolled sheet with printed text on it, the wrapped scroll.

Figures (8)

• Figure 1: The Greek phantom scroll.
• Figure 2: The experimental setup (top: schematic, bottom: our build).
• Figure 3: Projection on the white screen.
• Figure 4: Cross-section of the transparent scroll (inverted) with a segmented path.
• Figure 5: 3-D view of the Greek phantom scroll.