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Secrets of the Dead

How Technology Revived Seneca the Elder

Season 21 Episode 6 | 2m 53s

Researcher Valeria Piano employs two different technological methods to decipher a carbonized scroll from Herculaneum. First, she uses a microscope to examine the texts, and then she studies images of the scrolls produced with infrared light. Her work has brought to light a history of Rome written by Seneca the Elder, long thought to have been lost forever.

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