Using A.I., Researchers Peer Inside a 2,000-Year-Old Scroll Charred by Mount Vesuvius’ Eruption

With the help of artificial intelligence, researchers have revealed some of the text inside a 2,000-year-old scroll that was charred during Mount Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 C.E.

Scholars are now hard at work deciphering the previously unreadable words. They’ve already translated one word, “διατροπή,” which means “disgust” in ancient Greek and appears at least twice within the text.

The scroll in question is called PHerc. 172. It’s one of thousands of scorched papyrus papers recovered in the 1750s from a Roman mansion in Herculaneum, a seaside town that was destroyed when Vesuvius unleashed its torrent of ash and debris. Herculaneum, which is now the Italian town of Ercolano, is located roughly ten miles north of Pompeii.

Researchers think the scrolls contain ancient literary and philosophical texts. However, they are too badly burned—and too fragile—to be unrolled by hand, though many have tried over the past 270 years. Because of the intense heat produced by the eruption, the scrolls resemble brittle lumps of charcoal.

As a result, researchers have had to take a different approach: They’re using artificial intelligence and other technologies to digitally “unroll” the scrolls.

Since early 2023, citizen scientists across the globe have been working to reveal the mysterious texts inside. Many are participating in the Vesuvius Challenge, a worldwide contest offering more than $1 million in prizes to anyone who can help tease out words from the unreadable documents.

In October 2023, a computer science student made the challenge’s first big breakthrough: Using A.I., then-21-year-old Luke Farritor revealed “πορφύραc,” an ancient Greek word that refers to the color purple. He won $40,000 for this achievement.

Then, last February, Farritor joined forces with two other participants—Youssef Nader and Julian Schilliger—to reveal more than 2,000 characters from one of the Herculaneum scrolls. Together, they were awarded prizes totalling $700,000.

Now, the project has revealed “more recoverable text than we have ever seen in a scanned Herculaneum scroll,” says Brent Seales, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky who’s been leading the effort to decode the scrolls, in a statement from the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries, where PHerc. 172 and two other Herculaneum scrolls are housed.

In total, researchers can see several columns of text, each made up of about 26 lines. But they are not done yet: They hope to make even more of PHerc. 172’s text visible and ideally uncover the work’s title.

“We can tell the entire scroll is full of text,” says Stephen Parsons, who leads the Vesuvius Challenge, to BBC News’ Rebecca Morelle and Alison Francis. “Now we can work on making it show up more clearly. We’re going to go from a handful of words to really substantial passages.”

While computer scientists attempt to digitally “unroll” even more of the scroll, scholars are trying to make sense of the characters and words inside. Based on other scrolls they’ve interpreted so far, they suspect PHerc. 172’s text will have something to do with the teachings of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, per New Scientist’s Matthew Sparkes.

Parsons adds: “We’re confident we will be able to read pretty much the whole scroll in its entirety, and it’s the first time we’ve really been able to say that with high confidence.”

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Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.