Ancient scrolls damaged by fire are often too fragile and blackened to read, but developing new ways to recover their text requires realistic test materials. To meet that need, researchers made their own scrolls using materials similar to those used thousands of years ago, then burned them.
Douglas Seiler carefully sourced papyrus and reed pens from Egypt and traditional lampblack ink from Japan. High school students were paid to write on the papyrus, using lines from Star Wars, the Bible, and a quote from the 1960s science-fiction television show The Outer Limits.
Because the researchers know exactly what was written on these replica scrolls, the charred results offer a reliable standard for testing techniques meant to read damaged ancient texts. The source reports only this effort, and no conflicting details were presented.