Artificial Intelligence Just Cracked the Text of a Burned Papyrus That Would Crumble if Touched

Source Domain: dailygalaxy.com

A charred papyrus, long considered impossible to read without destroying it, has finally revealed its contents. Thanks to artificial intelligence, researchers accessed the text without opening the document and managed to spot writing inside something no one had been able to read for over 2,000 years.

For years, this ancient artifact remained sealed because of its extreme fragility. According to a release published by Oxford University, any attempt to unroll it risked wiping out the ink completely, leaving researchers with no safe method to study it.

The work shows a new way to deal with ancient texts that are too fragile to touch. For historians, it’s a big shift after decades of getting nowhere. The combination of advanced imaging and AI analysis now allows scientists to examine objects once considered permanently inaccessible.

An Artifact Too Fragile To Be Opened

The text is part of the Herculaneum scrolls, buried in 79 AD. When they were found, they looked more like lumps of charcoal than books. Trying to open them would just destroy them.

As stated in the statement, one of these scrolls has been sitting at the Bodleian Library for years, with no real way to read it. Researchers tried different methods, but nothing worked. For a long time, it was basically a dead end. The papyrus was there, but its content remained completely out of reach.

The exterior of the scroll is too damaged and carbonized to open physically. Credit: Vesuvius Challenge

AI Reconstructs Text Without Physical Contact

The turning point came in 2024 when researchers tried something different using the Diamond Light Source. This machine sends high-energy X-rays through objects to map their internal structure without damaging them.

According to the same source, this technique made it possible to virtually reconstruct the papyrus document and reveal entire sections of text. Often referred to as digital unwrapping, the process relies entirely on data processing…

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