This book contains the minutes of the Parliamentary committee established in 1817 to look at the methods employed by Dr Friedrich Sickler (1773-1836) in unrolling the Herculaneum papyri. These papyri, heavily carbonised following the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, were discovered at Herculaneum and twelve rolls were presented to the Prince Regent, later George IV, by the King of the Two Sicilies in 1816. In order to unroll these scrolls Sickler, having researched a new method to do so, was brought from Germany and paid to carry out the work. Unfortunately, it appears that Sickler's method consisted of soaking the scrolls in water until they were malleable and unrolling them from there. This method washed away any remnants of ink on the papyrus or caused the layers of the papyrus to crumble, rendering it useless for scholars.
A committee was established in 1817 to look at Sickler's methods. Sickler had inadvertantly destroyed seven of the twelve scrolls, and it was decided that he would be paid and removed from the project. Another pioneering method employed by the chemist Sir Humphry Davy, who had also sat on the committee, was used in Sickler's place. This found much greater success and a volume containing watercolours of some of the best preserved samples was presented to George IV in 1820 (RCIN 1076170).