Herculaneum Scrolls

 

One rather battered scroll; an introduction to the
enormity of the Herculaneum research task

Exciting news on the Vesuvius front. The molten lava and mud which rained down on Herculaneum and Pompeii in A.D.79, changed perceptions of that world forever. One thrilling legacy has been the Herculaneum Scrolls, hundreds of papyri that survived the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The scrolls are from a cache of more than 1,800 charred and carbonized papyri discovered in 1752 in an archaeological dig which revealed much of a library at a villa in Herculaneum thought to have belonged to Julius Caesar’s father-in-law. Buried and protected by volcanic ash for two thousand years, the Herculaneum scrolls represent the only large-scale library from the ancient world that has survived almost entire, and its rich exceptionality makes it a unique cultural treasure.

Ink Detection in research

In their charred state, the ancient documents had proved impenetrable as attempts to unroll any had resulted in the material crumbling and any writing on surviving small pieces thereby lost. Scientists have researched and analysed for years in the attempt to cut the Gordian knot but in 2024 by using computer technology and advanced artificial intelligence, progress has gradually occurred. Researchers can now analyse the Herculaneum scrolls without unrolling and risking damage to the extremely fragile documents. More than 2,000 characters — the first full passages — have been deciphered from a scroll, according to an announcement this month by computer scientists who launched the Vesuvius Challenge, a competition designed to accelerate the discoveries made on the scrolls. “It’s incredibly gratifying to know that these things are available, and we have now a mechanism to read them — and that reading them is going to create an entire field of study and scholarship for classicists,” said Brent Seales, a computer science professor at the University of Kentucky  and co-creator of the Vesuvius Challenge. Seales has worked for over 20 years with a research team to develop non-invasive techniques to unlock the message of the precious scrolls and it was Seales who developed the virtual 'unwrapping' procedure, described below, with his team which estimated the scrolls, if unwound, would be between 36 and 49 feet long. This is merely one indication of the enormity of the task to unlock the coiled, concealed text.

The first word to be read from an unopened scroll was found separately by both Luke Farritor and Youssef Nader — a computer science student at the University of Nebraska and a graduate student in bio-robotics at Freie University, Berlin, respectively — in October 2024. This year, joined by Julian Schilliger, a robotics student at ETH Zürich, the three have won the Victoria Challenge’s $700,000 grand prize for being the first team to decipher more than 85% of characters from four continuous passages within the same scroll.

The trio uncovered the text by applying a technique known as “virtual unwrapping” to the rolled-up scroll — one of several owned by the Institut de France — which was released on the website. The process involved using computer tomography, *** an X-ray procedure to scan the coiled-up, warped papyrus, allowing the researchers to virtually flatten the scrolls and detect the ink on the page through advanced AI. They developed machine-learning algorithms to successfully detect and decipher the first complete passages of texts from scans of the charred scrolls. Seales said that there are grains of sand sprinkled all the way through the scrolls; "You can see them twinkling in the scans and that constellation is fixed." Using the sand grains like guide stars, the finished software should be able to orient the letters on more of the curled pages and line up multiple scans to verify the imagery.

After the virtual unwrapping
some of the Herculaneum library 
was disclosed.

When the trio of research students had identified the letters as Ancient Greek, experts from England, France and Italy, were brought in to assess the text.  The language uncovered is sophisticated, nuanced, intellectual and appears to have been written by the Epicurean philosopher, Philodemus, the Greek philosopher-in-residence working in the library on the site where the scrolls were subsequently unearthed. Philodemus was born in the first century B.C. in what is now Jordan and studied at the Epicurean school in Athens, becoming a prominent teacher and interpreter of the philosopher's ideas. Epicurus, his lodestar, was a Greek philosopher who developed a school of thought in the third century B.C. that promoted pleasure as the main goal in life though in the form of living modestly, foregoing fear of the afterlife and learning about the natural world.

In the first passages translated from the scrolls, Philodemus is advocating his audience to relax, find good friendships, live in the moment and enjoy pleasures and life. The first sentence deciphered, reads, “As too in the case of food, we do not right away believe things that are scarce, to be absolutely more pleasant than those which are abundant.” Philodemus is basically passing on the Epicurean message suggesting that fulfilment can be found through the pleasure of everyday things. A message which still resonates down the ages! Both the essential message and the means of delivering it via ancient artefacts deciphered through the use of ultra modern Artificial Intelligence, demonstrate a most illuminating fusion of the old and the new. This a thrilling development.

 

Remains of the Villa dei Papyri where the scrolls were 
discovered. Situated on the shore and thus eluding the
worst of the Vesuvius eruption

Intact mosaic floor from the upper storey
of the villa.

***Computer tomography (CT) is a noninvasive medical imaging technique that uses X-rays to create cross-sectional images of the body. These images are call 'tomographic images or slices.'