AI Reads Text of Damaged Ancient Scroll from Herculaneum Villa

Scientists used artificial intelligence to read the text of an ancient scroll recovered from the ruins of Herculaneum without physically unrolling it, Euronews reported. The scroll, designated PHerc. 1667, contains a philosophical treatise on ethics, human nature and moral progress.

The scroll belonged to a library of carbonized manuscripts first unearthed in the 1750s from a villa destroyed during the 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Approximately 1,800 papyrus pieces from the site form the only complete surviving library from the Greco-Roman world.

Earlier physical attempts to open the scroll damaged the papyrus and reduced its height from an original 19–24 cm to just 8 cm.

The newly read text names Aristocreon, a nephew and disciple of the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus. The same project identified a new book by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus from another scroll. “Today, we are hearing voices that have been silent for 2,000 years,” Seales said.