Researchers Utilize AI to Translate 2,000-Year-Old Carbonized Scrolls from Herculaneum
Researchers working on the Vesuvius Challenge, launched by the University of Kentucky in 2023, used machine learning and advanced X-ray scanning to make major progress translating carbonized scrolls from Herculaneum’s Villa of the Papyri, preserved by Mount Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 CE. Last week, the university announced that the team virtually “unwrapped” the scroll PHerc. 1667 to read 20 surviving columns of text, recovered 70 columns from PHerc. 172 held at Oxford’s Bodleian Library, and identified new books by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus. Cofounder Brent Seales said researchers in France and the UK used a particle accelerator and synchrotron to create extremely high-resolution scans at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, producing datasets of up to 300 terabytes per scroll and enabling detailed 3D mapping. Team member Federica Nicolardi of the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II noted that PHerc. 1667 had been physically opened and damaged in the 1980s and once scored zero for readability, but virtual unwrapping now allows sustained arguments to be followed across multiple columns.
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This story was covered in Strikes, Restitution, and AI Unlocking the Past