AI Scans Produce Full Text of One Carbonised Herculaneum Scroll; 600 Others Remain Unopened

Researchers have extracted the complete surviving text from a carbonised scroll from the Herculaneum library without physically unrolling it. @NewScientist reported that AI software and high-resolution 3D scans produced 1.5 metres of text written across 22 columns from a 2-centimetre-wide core whose outer layers had been stripped by earlier scholars.

The scroll was carbonised during the AD 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius that also buried Pompeii.

The library itself was discovered in 1752, and scholars have attempted to read its contents since then. The ink on the scrolls is mostly indistinguishable from the charred papyrus to human eyes. The extracted text contains multiple references to Stoic doctrine and addresses ethics, art and human nature.

Federica Nicolardi stated that the script is typical of the 2nd century BC and mentions the nephew of the Greek Stoic philosopher Chrysippus, whom she identified as the most natural candidate for authorship. A second scroll made readable by the same scans has been identified as On Gods, Book 8 by Philodemus.

This identification extends Philodemus’s previously known work to at least an eight-book series.

The Vesuvius Challenge project has used particle accelerators to scan dozens of scrolls since 2023 at resolutions down to 2 micrometres. The project has awarded $1.8 million in prizes to date and will offer a $1 million prize for the full reading of any other scroll. It will also release all data, code and models online.

Approximately 600 unopened scrolls remain from the Herculaneum library.