Scientific sensation: managed to read complete fragments of the “incomprehensible” ancient scrolls of Herculaneum

Researchers have revealed the first complete passages deciphered from the famously incomprehensible scrolls of Herculaneum. After using artificial intelligence to determine the first word to read from an unopened scroll from Herculaneum, a team of researchers has discovered several nearly complete passages from the ancient text, providing insight into the philosophy of nearly 2,000 years ago.

The Herculaneum Scrolls are hundreds of papyri that survived the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, CNN reports. In their charred state, the ancient documents would crumble if anyone tried to unfold them, and any writing on the surviving fragments would be nearly illegible to the human eye.

Using computer technology and advanced artificial intelligence, researchers can now analyze the Herculaneum scrolls without unrolling them and risking damage to the extremely fragile documents. More than 2,000 characters – the first complete passages – have been deciphered from the scroll, according to an announcement made Monday by computer scientists who launched the Vesuvius Challenge to speed up discoveries made on the scrolls.

“It’s incredibly rewarding to know that these things are available and we now have a mechanism to read them,” says Brent Seales, a computer science professor at the University of Kentucky and co-author of the project. Challenge to Vesuvius.

The first word that could be read from the unopened scroll was found separately by Luke Farritor and Yusef Nader—a computer science student at the University of Nebraska and a biorobotics graduate student at the Free University of Berlin, respectively—in October. This year they were joined by Julian Schilliger, a robotics student at ETH Zürich, and the three won the competition’s $700,000 grand prize for being the first team to decipher more than 85% of the symbols from four continuous passages in a single scroll.

Moreover, the team exceeded all competition requirements and read 15 partial columns of text, which is about 5% of the scroll volume.

The trio revealed the text by applying a technique known as “virtual unrolling” to a folded scroll – one of several owned by the Institut de France – which was published on the competition website. The process involved using CT scanning, an X-ray procedure to scan coiled, curved papyrus, allowing researchers to virtually unravel the scrolls and detect ink on the page using advanced artificial intelligence. After Farritor, Nader, and Schilliger found the Greek letters, papyrologists from England, France, and Italy were brought in to evaluate the text.

“If you look at the level of vocabulary (from the passages), there is some really nuanced intellectual conversation going on here. …I’m just thrilled to give scientists a completely pristine, complete copy of what it is so they can do their work and then we can fully understand it,” says Professor Seales, who originally created the method deployment and has been developing this technology for almost 20 years.

More than 1,000 charred scrolls were recovered from the eruption of Vesuvius, a volcano near Naples, Italy, that covered the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum with volcanic mud. Charred documents now called the Herculaneum Scrolls were discovered in a building believed to be the home of Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, according to the University of Kentucky.

Newly deciphered passages were extracted from the end of the scroll and reveal words written by the philosopher Philodemus, who was believed to be the philosopher in residence working in the library where the scrolls were found, the announcement said.

In the transcribed text, Philodemus writes about “pleasure” and whether the abundance of goods available can affect the amount of pleasure they provide. “As with food, we do not immediately believe that what is in short supply is absolutely more pleasant than what is in abundance,” says the first sentence.

Professor Seales said he hoped almost the entire scroll would be deciphered this year – and the new grand prize competition sets an even more ambitious goal, offering a $100,000 cash prize to the first team that can decipher at least 90 % of all four scrolls published on the competition website.