AI deciphers entire Herculaneum scroll for first time

Researchers working on the Vesuvius Challenge have achieved a milestone in digital archaeology: the complete decipherment of a scroll scorched by the 79 CE eruption of Mount Vesuvius, according to Forbes and Live Science. The team, associated with the University of Kentucky, recovered the text without physically unrolling the fragile papyrus—a feat made possible by high-resolution X-ray imaging combined with machine-learning algorithms trained to read the ancient script. The scroll, nearly five feet long and spanning twenty columns, contains passages from an ancient philosophical work.

The breakthrough marks a shift in how scholars access Herculaneum's most precious archive. The Villa of the Papyri, which surfaced in the 1750s near the Bay of Naples, yielded thousands of scrolls carbonized by the eruption's heat. For centuries, their text remained locked away; physical unrolling risked destroying the brittle papyrus. Digital methods have now opened a new pathway to recovery, allowing researchers to read the ink's elemental signature through the papyrus without touching it. Artnet News noted that previous efforts had decoded portions of scrolls, but this represents the first complete scroll deciphered by artificial intelligence.