AI helps recover complete text of Herculaneum scroll burnt by Mount Vesuvius

A groundbreaking achievement in ancient text recovery has been announced, with researchers successfully reading a complete Herculaneum scroll that was carbonized by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius nearly two millennia ago. This marks the first time a closed scroll has been fully deciphered using artificial intelligence and advanced imaging techniques.

The Vesuvius Challenge, an initiative promoting new technologies to read these fragile manuscripts, has pledged a $1 million prize to any individual or team that can fully read another scroll. This effort aims to accelerate scholarship and unlock the secrets held within hundreds of ancient texts discovered at Herculaneum, a Roman town destroyed alongside Pompeii in 79 CE.

"Just a year ago it would have been crazy for any of us to believe that there would be a complete scroll read completely non-invasively with hundreds of columns of text," said Brent Seales, a professor of computer science at the University of Kentucky and a project founder. "Today we have shown you that that is possible. I believe we're going to read every single one of the scrolls in the collection."

The blackened, fragile scrolls cannot be opened without risking severe damage. Researchers employ high-resolution scans and computational methods to "virtually unwrap" them, detecting the faint ink on the papyrus layers. So far, over 600 unopened scrolls have been scanned, with more potentially awaiting discovery in unexcavated parts of the villa. The newly recovered texts include 70 columns from "On Vices, Book 1," attributed to the philosopher Philodemus, and nearly 1.5 meters of text from a document dated to 200-300 BCE, exploring ethics, arts, and human behavior.

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Just a year ago it would have been crazy for any of us to believe that there would be a complete scroll read completely non-invasively with hundreds of columns of text. Today we have shown you that that is possible. I believe we're going to read every single one of the scrolls in the collection.