AI Translates Unopened Ancient Herculaneum Scrolls Buried by Mount Vesuvius

When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, it buried the Roman town of Herculaneum under a massive wave of superheated volcanic ash. This disaster destroyed a bustling city but accidentally preserved an entire ancient library. Today, modern machine learning algorithms are allowing researchers to read these carbonized, unopened scrolls for the very first time.

The Tragedy of 79 AD and the Villa of the Papyri

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius is most famous for destroying Pompeii, but the nearby coastal town of Herculaneum suffered a slightly different fate. While Pompeii was buried in falling pumice, Herculaneum was hit by a pyroclastic surge. This wave of hot gas and volcanic mud instantly carbonized organic matter.

In 1752, a Swiss engineer named Karl Weber was excavating a massive Roman estate in Herculaneum. Researchers now believe this estate belonged to Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, the father-in-law of Julius Caesar. Deep inside the ruins, workers found a room containing over 800 papyrus scrolls stacked on shelves.

The heat of the volcano had turned the scrolls into fragile lumps of charcoal. Early attempts to read them were disastrous. When 18th-century scholars tried to physically unroll the scrolls, the papyrus crumbled into dust. For over 250 years, the remaining scrolls sat in museum vaults in Naples, Italy. They were completely unreadable because opening them meant destroying them forever.

The Problem with Invisible Ink

Modern scientists eventually realized that physical unrolling was impossible. However, looking inside the scrolls with traditional medical X-ray machines presented a massive technical hurdle.

Ancient Romans wrote using carbon-based ink made from soot and water. Because the papyrus itself had been turned into carbon by the volcano, the ink and the paper were identical in their chemical makeup. When researchers took X-rays of the scrolls, the ink did not show up. It was entirely invisible against the charred pages.

Dr. Brent Seales, a computer science professor at the University of Kentucky, spent two decades trying to solve this problem. He pioneered a method called virtual unwrapping. In 2019, Seales took several of the Herculaneum scrolls to the Diamond Light Source in the United Kingdom. This facility is a massive particle accelerator that acts like a giant microscope. The team bombarded the scrolls with high-intensity X-rays to create incredibly detailed 3D CT scans of the interior layers. Even with these high-resolution images, the ink was still incredibly difficult to see with the human eye.

The Vesuvius Challenge and Machine Learning

To speed up the deciphering process, tech entrepreneurs Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross partnered with Dr. Seales to launch the Vesuvius Challenge in March 2023. They released the 3D CT scans to the public and offered over $1 million in total prize money to anyone who could write software to read the text.

The breakthrough came when competitors started applying artificial intelligence to the high-resolution scans. Machine learning models excel at finding tiny patterns in massive amounts of data.

A 21-year-old computer science student named Luke Farritor made the first major discovery. He noticed that the ancient ink subtly changed the physical texture of the papyrus, creating a tiny, cracked pattern on the page. Farritor trained a machine learning model to look for this specific crackle effect in the 3D scans. His AI successfully detected the Greek word “porphyras” (meaning purple) hidden inside an unopened scroll.

Winning the Grand Prize

In February 2024, the Vesuvius Challenge awarded its $700,000 Grand Prize to a team of three young researchers: Luke Farritor, Youssef Nader, and Julian Schilliger.

The team built a highly complex software pipeline to read the ancient text. The process involved three specific steps:

• Segmentation: Schilliger created an algorithm that digitally mapped and traced the crushed, overlapping layers of papyrus inside the 3D scan.
• Flattening: The software then digitally unrolled these specific layers into a flat, 2D image on a computer screen.
• Ink Detection: Finally, Nader and Farritor applied deep learning models to the flattened images. The AI scanned the virtual papyrus and highlighted exactly where the invisible carbon ink was sitting.

This method allowed the team to read 15 distinct columns of text, totaling more than 2,000 characters.

What the Ancient Text Actually Says

Papyrologists and classical scholars were thrilled by the newly revealed text. They quickly identified the author as Philodemus, an Epicurean philosopher who lived in the Villa of the Papyri.

The translated passage is a philosophical discussion about pleasure, scarcity, and human senses. Philodemus argues against an unnamed opponent about whether things that are rare bring more pleasure than things that are abundant. He uses food and music as his primary examples.

In one specific sentence, Philodemus writes about capers. He notes that just because capers are a common ingredient, they do not necessarily provide less pleasure than a rare delicacy. The text also includes deep philosophical musings on the emotional impact of different types of music. Scholars note that reading a completely new, unknown text from the ancient world is an incredibly rare event in modern history.

The Future of the Herculaneum Library

The success of the AI ink detection software has completely changed the field of archaeology. The Vesuvius Challenge has already announced new goals for the coming years.

Currently, scientists have only read about five percent of one single scroll. The next phase of the project offers a new $100,000 prize to the first team that can automatically decipher 90 percent of all four scrolls scanned at the Diamond Light Source facility.

If this AI technology can be scaled up to work faster, researchers hope to scan and translate the remaining 800 scrolls sitting in Naples. Historians believe these scrolls could contain lost plays by Sophocles, missing histories of the Roman Republic, or early drafts of famous philosophical texts.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the Herculaneum scrolls? The Herculaneum scrolls are a collection of over 800 papyrus texts found in a Roman villa that was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. The volcanic heat turned the scrolls into solid blocks of carbonized ash.

How does AI read a closed scroll? Scientists first use a particle accelerator to take highly detailed 3D X-rays of the scroll. Then, researchers use machine learning algorithms to map the internal layers of the papyrus and detect microscopic texture changes caused by the ancient carbon-based ink.

Where are the physical scrolls kept today? The vast majority of the Herculaneum scrolls are stored securely in the National Library of Naples in Italy, while a small handful belong to the Institut de France in Paris.

Who won the Vesuvius Challenge? The 2023 Grand Prize of $700,000 was awarded to a team of three researchers: Luke Farritor from the United States, Youssef Nader from Germany, and Julian Schilliger from Switzerland.