AI Identifies Author of Charred Scroll Buried by Vesuvius for 2,000 Years

For the first time, researchers have identified the author and title of a document that’s been locked inside a charred scroll for nearly 2,000 years—without peeling back a single layer. The scroll, PHerc. 172, was recovered from the ruins of Herculaneum, the ancient Roman town buried by the ash and debris of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. The scroll is one of three Herculaneum scrolls that now reside at Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries. Thanks to high-resolution scans and some seriously clever machine learning, scholars were able to virtually “unwrap” the papyrus and read the name inside: On Vices, by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus. The treatise—its full name being On Vices and Their Opposite Virtues and In Whom They Are and About What, according to Fine Books Magazine, is basically ancient self-help, exploring how to live a virtuous life by avoiding vice. Philodemus wrote the work in the first century BCE and it is now being read for the first time since it was buried in the devastating ... Read full article.