Using artificial intelligence to decipher scrolls burned by the eruption of Vesuvius

Specifically, researchers used AI to distinguish ink from papyrus and determine the nature of Greek letters by looking for repetitions.

They won a prize of 700,000 dollars (651,000 euros). Three researchers were awarded on Monday 5 February for using artificial intelligence to decipher a small part of a handwritten scroll severely damaged by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. The competition, called the “Vesuvius Challenge”, was created by Brent Seals, a computer science researcher at the University of Kentucky in the United States, and Nate Friedman, the 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 very happy to announce that our crazy project has come to fruition. After 2000… pic.twitter.com/fihs9ADb48

— Nate Friedman (@netfriedman) February 5, 2024

The Herculaneum Papyri include about 800 scrolls buried in Pompeii and Herculaneum during the eruption, according to competition organizers. Preserved at the Institut de France in Paris and at the National Library in Naples and resembling charred logs, the scrolls crumble and are easily damaged when trying to unroll them.

5% of decrypted scrolls

Organizers had earlier scanned the four scrolls and offered a total of one million dollars in prizes to anyone who could decipher at least 85% of the four passages of 140 characters each. Among the winners are Youssef Nader, a doctoral student in Berlin, Luke Ferriter, a student and SpaceX intern from Nebraska in the United States, and Julian Schilliger, a Swiss robotics student.

The trio specifically used artificial intelligence to distinguish ink from papyrus and determine the nature of Greek letters by looking for repetitions. They deciphered about 5% of the scrolls. According to the organizers of the competition, the author of the papyrus will be “Probably the Epicurean Philosopher Philodemus.”writing “About food, music and how to enjoy life.”