If there is one thing I love as much as literature, it’s history. That’s why a recent discovery caught my attention, because it involves both!
Recently, a nearly 2,000-year-old scroll from Herculaneum has revealed its secrets to modern science. The scroll, PHerc. 172, was buried under the eruption of *Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, and for centuries, its contents have remained unreadable. Now, thanks to a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and a particle accelerator, a team of librarians, computer scientists and scholars announced on February 5 they had successfully recovered text from PHerc. 172, offering us a rare glimpse into the world of the ancient Greek thinker, Philodemus of Gadara.
Philodemus, a philosopher and poet who lived from around 110 to 30 B.C., is known for his emphasis on the pursuit of happiness through simple pleasures and the avoidance of pain. The handwriting in PHerc. 172 is similar to other scrolls attributed to Philodemus and the word “foolish” is characteristic of his work. His work (although often overshadowed by figures like Aristotle and Plato), presents intriguing ideas to the understanding of Epicureanism (a system of philosophy).
The scroll was carbonized by the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius, making it far too fragile to open by hand. For centuries, it sat there, unread and untouched, until modern technology stepped in. Researchers at the University of Oxford, in collaboration with the *Vesuvius Challenge AI project, used a synchrotron (a type of particle accelerator) to create high-resolution X-ray images of the scroll. With the help of AI, these images revealed traces of ink that had been hidden for nearly two millennia, slowly piecing together this lost piece of history.
While the majority of the ancient Greek text is still undeciphered, researchers have identified the words “foolish” (ἀδιάληπτος), “fear” (φοβ), “disgust” (διατροπή) and “life” (βίου). It’s a huge step forward in reading these ancient scrolls, though researchers admit there’s still a long way to go before the full text is decoded. For now, these early results offer a glimpse into the words and wisdom that has been hidden all this time.
*Mount Vesuvius in Italy erupted in 79 AD, creating hot avalanches of rock, ash, and gases. The ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were buried by these deadly ashflows, killing most of the 20,000 citizens, yet preserving daily life in the cities.
*The Vesuvius Challenge is a machine learning, computer vision, and geometry competition aimed at reading the Herculaneum scrolls.
Source: Live Science Scrollprize.org, American Museum of Natural History
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