artificial intelligence used to decipher scrolls charred by the eruption of Vesuvius

In particular, researchers used AI to distinguish ink from papyrus and determined the nature of Greek characters by detecting repetitions.

They won a prize of 700,000 dollars (651,000 euros). Three researchers were rewarded on Monday February 5 for having succeeded in deciphering, using artificial intelligence, a small part of handwritten scrolls seriously damaged by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. The competition, named “Vesuvius Challenge”, was created by Brent Seales, a computer science researcher at the University of Kentucky in the United States, and Nat Friedman, founder of the Github platform, now owned by Microsoft.

Ten months ago, we launched the Vesuvius Challenge to solve the ancient problem of the Herculaneum Papyri, a library of scrolls that were flash-fried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Today we are overjoyed to announce that our crazy project has succeeded. After 2000… pic.twitter.com/fihs9ADb48

— Nat Friedman (@natfriedman) February 5, 2024

The Herculaneum papyri consist of some 800 scrolls, according to the competition organizers, charred during this eruption which buried Pompeii and Herculaneum. Resembling charred logs and preserved at the Institut de France in Paris and the National Library in Naples, the scrolls crumble and are easily damaged when trying to unroll them.

5% of a decrypted scroll

The organizers had previously carried out scans of four scrolls and offered a total reward of one million dollars for anyone who could decipher at least 85% of four passages of 140 characters. The winners are Youssef Nader, a doctoral student in Berlin, Luke Farritor, a student and SpaceX intern from Nebraska in the United States, and Julian Schilliger, a Swiss robotics student.

The trio notably used artificial intelligence to distinguish ink from papyrus and determined the nature of Greek characters by detecting repetitions. They deciphered about 5% of a scroll. According to the organizers of the competition, the author of the papyrus would be “probably the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus”writing “about food, music, and how to enjoy the pleasures of life.”