But the scorching also preserved the paper. "That's why we don't have any paper out of Greece" from that period, other than this manuscript, Ware said. If the document had been left on a shelf, two millennia ago, "it could not have survived until today," said Macfarlane. That was the fate of all other papyri from the period. But this scroll was "destroyed and preserved simultaneously. . . . It's a great irony."

Hundreds of bits of the scroll were assembled and placed between sheets of glass about a foot long and 8 inches wide. There were nine of the assemblies, and the fragments were not all in correct order.

In April 2006, Ware and Macfarlane were invited to the Thessaloniki Archaeological Museum, where the fragments are preserved. Colleagues from Italy (who offered advice on conservation) and England also were there. The BYU experts were there to photograph the fragments and recreate as much of the scroll as possible.

They set up a lab at the museum, using a special digital camera on a tripod that looked down at the papyrus. The camera carried a series of colored filters loaded in a magazine that looked something like a big black pizza.

The camera, Ware said proudly, "has all of three pixel defects" out of 4 million pixels that are on the image. "We know exactly where they are. They're mapped for us," so the defects do not intrude on the final product.

During an interview in BYU's Joseph F. Smith Building, he and Macfarlane showed how the magazine is attached to the camera on one side and the close-up lens on the other. The setup allows filters to rotate into place according to the needs of the researcher. It holds 14 filters, and they can be changed.

Each narrow-band filter allows only light of one type to pass. By selecting different wavelengths, through the choice of filters, scientists were able to enhance details of the writing.

They would run through a series of filters, checking to see which had best response to the ancient ink. For some parts the writing was so clear that only one filter was needed. At other places, several filters were used on fragments especially difficult to read, what Ware called "the problem children." The techniques also showed how the fragments fit together.

"You can line up the fibers in the virtual image," Macfarlane said. "You can line up the ink to make sure it really does fit."

The project was tedious but enjoyable. People would look at a fragment and not see any writing, "yet on the screen, there's text," he added. "It's exciting to see these come out."

Greek scholars are working on a new publication of the document, intending to release the information by the end of the year. The BYU team intends to publish an edition in 2007, including a Greek text and a translation.

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E-mail: bau@desnews.com