Herculaneum scroll: Shining a light on 2,000-year-old secrets

Scientists are using light 10 billion times brighter than the Sun to decipher scrolls buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79.

A team at Diamond Light Source in Oxfordshire is working to read the scrolls, which were carbonised almost 2,000 years ago as the Roman town of Herculaneum was buried in volcanic ash.

The two complete scrolls and four fragments belong to the Institut de France in Paris.

Video journalist: Chris Wood