{"slug": "scroll-burned-in-79-ad-volcanic-eruption-finally-deciphered-using-ai", "title": "Scroll Burned in 79 AD Volcanic Eruption Finally Deciphered Using AI", "summary": "Researchers have used artificial intelligence and advanced imaging to decipher a carbonized scroll buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, recovering all surviving text from a single scroll for the first time. The nearly five-foot-long segment contains roughly 20 columns of ancient Greek philosophy, accessible after nearly 2,000 years. The breakthrough was accelerated by the Vesuvius Challenge, a public competition offering cash prizes for deciphering the scrolls.", "body_md": "When Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., it buried hundreds of papyrus\nscrolls. They were rediscovered in the mid-1700s, remembers Smithsonian magazine, \"the only\nsurviving collection of its kind from the Greco-Roman\nworld...\"\n\"But when scholars tried to unroll them, the carbonized manuscripts\ncrumbled to dust.\"\nEvery generation that followed faced the same dilemma: They could wait for\ntechnology to advance, abandoning hope of reading the ancient texts\nin their own lifetime. Or they could try to open the scrolls\nthemselves — and risk destroying them.\nIn recent years, researchers have settled on a third option. Using\nadvanced imaging and artificial intelligence, they're deciphering\nthe scrolls without needing to unroll them at all.\nThe Vesuvius Challenge\nhas accelerated the process by turning it into a public competition,\ncomplete with cash prizes. In 2023, a student won $40,000 for\ndeciphering a\nsingle word — \"purple\" — from an unopened scroll. Later,\ncontestants would identify 2,000 Greek characters from one scroll ($700,000) and the title of another ($60,000). Now, for the very first time,\nresearchers have recovered all\nsurviving text from a single scroll. The nearly five-foot-long\nsegment includes roughly 20 columns of ancient Greek philosophy,\naccessible for the first time in nearly 2,000 years.\n\"The tech actually does look like magic, but it's not,\" Brent\nSeales, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky, said\nat a press\nconference. (The article points out that Seales partnered with two Silicon Valley investors in 2023 to launch the Vesuvius Challenge, and is now hailing \"the restoration of lost voices from the ancient world.\"\nSeales has been working on virtually unwrapping the\nscrolls since the early 2000s. The process involved imaging the\nbundles of papyrus using technology similar to CT scanners, isolating\nthin layers and then stitching them together.... \"We've developed\na systematic and a repeatable approach,\" Seales told the audience.\n\"Now it's only a matter of time until we read all of the\nscrolls.\"\n[Read more of this story](https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/06/27/1825220/scroll-burned-in-79-ad-volcanic-eruption-finally-deciphered-using-ai?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed) at Slashdot.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/scroll-burned-in-79-ad-volcanic-eruption-finally-deciphered-using-ai", "canonical_source": "https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/06/27/1825220/scroll-burned-in-79-ad-volcanic-eruption-finally-deciphered-using-ai?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed", "published_at": "2026-06-27 19:34:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-27 19:41:54.209113+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "computer-vision", "ai-research"], "entities": ["Vesuvius Challenge", "Brent Seales", "University of Kentucky", "Mount Vesuvius", "Smithsonian magazine", "Silicon Valley"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/scroll-burned-in-79-ad-volcanic-eruption-finally-deciphered-using-ai", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/scroll-burned-in-79-ad-volcanic-eruption-finally-deciphered-using-ai.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/scroll-burned-in-79-ad-volcanic-eruption-finally-deciphered-using-ai.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/scroll-burned-in-79-ad-volcanic-eruption-finally-deciphered-using-ai.jsonld"}}