Reuters reports that scientists hope to combine artificial intelligence and human expertise to decipher ancient scrolls charred by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius 2,000 years ago.
Hundreds of papyrus scrolls were discovered in the 1750s in a luxurious villa in the Roman city of Herculaneum, which, like neighboring Pompeii, was destroyed in the 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
For 250 years, scientists and researchers have been developing various methods to decipher the scrolls. In 2023, several tech companies launched the Vesuvius Challenge to try to decipher them using artificial intelligence.
Scientists have created the first image of a scroll held at Oxford’s Bodleian Library using a scanning technique. This allowed the AI to find ink marks to identify the written sections and clarify the text’s visibility.
The technique has also revealed an ancient Greek word for “disgusting.” The scientists hope to improve the quality of the images and identify more texts in the future.
