AI reads text from ancient Herculaneum scroll for the first time

Marchant, Jo

3 min read Original article ↗

Machine-learning technique reveals Greek words in CT scans of rolled-up papyrus.

By

  1. Jo Marchant

    1. Jo Marchant is a freelance science writer based in London.

A 21-year-old computer-science student has won a global contest to read the first text inside a carbonized scroll from the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum, which had been unreadable since a volcanic eruption in ad 79 — the same one that buried nearby Pompeii. The breakthrough could open up hundreds of texts from the only intact library to survive from Greco-Roman antiquity.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03212-1

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 13 October 2023: An earlier version of this article did not include the full name and affiliation of Brent Seales.

References

  1. Seales, W. B. et al. Sci. Adv. 2, e1601247 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Assael, Y. et al. Nature 603, 280–283 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

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