Virtual Access to Hidden Texts – Study of Ancient Papyri

When physical unfolding/unrolling of papyri is not possible or too dangerous for preserving the precious object, tomographic approaches may be the ap- propriate alternative. Requirements are the resolution and the contrast to distinguish writing and substrate. The steps to be performed are the following: (1) Select the object of interest (archaeological arguments, cultural back- ground of the object, etc.). (2) Find the proper physical procedure, especially with respect to contrast, take the tomographic data, e.g. by absorption x-ray tomography. (3) Apply mathematical unfolding transformations to the tomographic data, in order to obtain a 2d-planar reconstruction of text.