Ancient Roman scrolls that got "flash-fried" and buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, dubbed the Herculaneum Papyri, have recently been virtually unwrapped and decoded by three students using artificial intelligence.
This incredible breakthrough allows the scrolls to be readable again after over 2,000 years.
The scanned portions of the charred Herculaneum scroll that was decoded by three students using AI. Its ink has also been virtually reconstructed and enhanced for improved legibility.
Taking on the Vesuvius Challenge and Succeeding
The momentous feat came from beating the Vesuvius Challenge, a contest that was initiated last year by Brent Seales-a University of Kentucky computer scientist-alongside Silicon Valley backers Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman.
As for prizes, the competition has offered over $1 million already. $700,000 of that overall pool was given to the students Youssef Nader from Germany, Luke Farritor from the US, and Julian Schilliger from Switzerland after making more than 2,000 Greek letters from the scroll readable.
This challenge was particularly difficult due to the damage the scrolls sustained during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. It was part of a collection of papyrus scrolls that were believed to have been held at an opulent Roman villa's library in Herculaneum, a town near Pompeii.
The 1,000 whole or partial pieces of the now-called Herculaneum Papyri were discovered from excavations in the 18th century and were initially thought to be unreadable due to the carbonization that the scrolls and the ink therein were subjected to.
The students were able to get over these odds and take the high-resolution CT scans, which were taken at the Diamond Light Source facility in Oxfordshire in the UK, to extract readable portions of the text that were burned beyond legibility.
What Did the Ancient Roman Scrolls Say?
Friedman announced the winning team of scholars and their incredible achievement on X (formerly Twitter) last Feb. 5, writing, "Today we are overjoyed to announce that our crazy project has succeeded. After 2000 years, we can finally read the scrolls."
"The author - probably Epicurean philosopher Philodemus - writes here about music, food, and how to enjoy life's pleasures," he continued.
Friedman also added that the ancient author, who subscribed to the Epicurean school of thought, also threw "shade" at "unnamed ideological adversaries."
For Friedman, this could be the stoics that Philodemus is describing in the text as those "who have nothing to say about pleasure, either in general or in particular."
In the official announcement from the Vesuvius Challenge website, papyrologist Richard Janko was the one who purported these likely "suspicions." As per Janko, this breakthrough enables "many questions."
Of those "questions," he said: "But improvements to the identification of the ink, which can be expected, will soon answer most of them. I can hardly wait."
For the future of the project, more is yet to come this year according to Friedman, as only "5% of one scroll" has been revealed so far.
As such, their goal now is to decode entire scrolls instead of only one portion, announcing a new $100,000 grand prize for the first team to at least decode 90% using four scrolls that they will provide high-quality scans of.
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