In A First, AI Decodes Entire Scroll Scorched In Mt. Vesuvius Eruption
In A First, AI Decodes Entire Scroll Scorched In Mt. Vesuvius Eruption
Publish Date: 2026-07-01 17:46:00
Source Domain: www.forbes.com
The papyrus scroll known as PHerc. 1667 contains a philosophical treatise on ethics, arts and human nature.
Vesuvius Challenge
Using high-resolution X-ray imaging and artificial intelligence, scientists have for the first time virtually unrolled the surviving portion of an entire scroll scorched in the Mount Vesuvius eruption of 79 CE, viewing its contents from beginning to end without opening it and making the text available for scholarly study.
The achievement marks a milestone for the Vesuvius Challenge, an international effort launched in 2023 that taps machine learning and computer vision to decipher the contents of scrolls burned in the volcanic eruption that buried the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum in 20 feet of ash.
Previously, Vesuvius Challenge winners have decoded fragments from these rolled-up records of classical antiquity, but an entire scroll could produce even more insights into how our ancestors lived and thought 2,000 years ago.
Researchers have turned to technology to unroll the scrolls virtually since physically unfurling these fragile documents risks destroying them.
The newly unlocked scroll, known as PHerc. 1667, sustained damage to its outer layers during attempts to unroll it by hand in the 19th century and again in the 1960s and 1980s. Because of this, parts remain illegible. But the sections that can be read between gaps where the surface is lost point to a philosophical treatise on ethics, arts and human nature. The virtually unwrapping revealed almost 5 feet of continuous text across 20 columns.
‘Nor Anything Bad, Let Alone Ugly’
“Such being the goods for us, even from the opposite evils there will be neither anything good, let alone beautiful, nor anything bad, let alone ugly, nor happiness,” reads one excerpt translated from Greek. Another reads, “We will inquire into something, but we will not grasp it, if in some way we depart from ourselves and from our own nature.”
A quote like that one “seems so…
