By Lana Sterling
In a groundbreaking achievement, a team of techno-archaeologists has successfully deciphered text written on scrolls found in the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, cities destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted nearly 2,000 years ago. Using artificial intelligence (AI), the researchers were able to decipher an ancient Greek scroll that was burnt during the catastrophic event.
The team won the Vesuvius Challenge, named after the volcano that erupted and destroyed the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 AD, by deciphering a document. The catastrophic eruption buried a library of papyrus scrolls.
The Vesuvius Challenge, founded by Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross and computer scientist Brent Seales, has a prize pool of over $1m and a grand prize of $850,000 for anyone who can decipher 5% of a papyrus scroll.
Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor and Julian Schilliger won the challenge, forming a supergroup of experts who used a combination of 3D modelling and AI-based ink recognition to unlock the hidden text. Thanks to their work, 5% of the first scroll has now been deciphered. All the code produced has been made publicly available by the team on GitHub.
Initial interpretations suggest that the deciphered text may contain reflections on pleasure by the Epicurean scholar Philodemus, who is believed to have been the philosopher-in-residence where the scrolls were found.
The conclusion of the scroll reflects on the value of abundance compared to the value of scarcity: “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”.
The successful decoding of these scrolls marks a significant advance in the understanding of historical and philosophical insights. The work of these researchers opens up new possibilities for unravelling the mysteries of antiquity using cutting-edge technology.
