"Some are in for their content, some for their beauty: one is both hideous and illegible, but Hebron has included it because it is so extraordinary: three charred scrolls from a library in Herculaneum buried by the eruption of Vesuvius which also destroyed Pompeii, presented by George IV. “It shows that the concept of what we regard as treasure can change dramatically over the years,” he said. “We have documents that we now regard as priceless which were just scraps of paper when they came in. The Shakespeare was in the category which our founder, Bodley, described as ‘idle books and riff-raffs’."
— Bodleian Library shows off treasures, from Magna Carta to Shakespeare | Culture | The Guardian
