A burned scroll so fragile that it could not be unrolled has finally yielded up its secrets, thanks to medical technology and the ingenuity of a computer programmer.

This week a computer scientist announced that his team found a way to unroll the scroll virtually. Working off x-ray scans of the artifact, specialized software detected the layers of parchment and digitally unwound them, revealing for the first time Hebrew characters written on the scroll about 1,500 years ago.

“I’ve actually never seen the actual scroll,” says Brent Seales, a professor at the University of Kentucky. “For me, that’s a testament to the power of the digital age.”

You may read more here: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/1500-year-old-text-has-been-digitally-resurrected-burned-hebrew-scroll-180956031/?no-ist