Scientists have learned to use artificial intelligence to decipher charred ancient scrolls. So when the eruption of Mount Vesuvius reached Herculaneum in AD 79, it incinerated hundreds of ancient scrolls in the library of a luxury villa and buried the city of Rome under ash and pumice stone. The disaster seemed to have destroyed the scrolls forever, but almost 2,000 years later, researchers used artificial intelligence to peer deep into the fragile charred remains to extract the first word from one of the texts. writes about this Guard.
The discovery was announced by computer scientist Professor Brent Seals from the University of Kentucky. In March 2023, he and his colleagues launched the Vesuvius program to speed up text reading. The competition, backed by Silicon Valley investors, offers cash prizes to researchers who extract legible words from charred parchment.
“This is the first text recovered from one of these rolled, intact scrolls,” said Stephen Parsons, a research fellow at the university’s Digital Recovery Initiative. Since then, researchers have discovered several more letters from the ancient scroll.
Seals and his team released thousands of 3D X-ray images of two scrolls and three papyrus pieces. They also released an artificial intelligence program trained to read letters on scrolls based on the subtle changes ancient ink made to the structure of papyrus.
The unopened scrolls are among hundreds of scrolls belonging to the collection of the Institute of France in Paris and found in a library at a villa believed to have belonged to a high-ranking Roman statesman, possibly Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus. .
Two computer science students on the project, Luke Farritor from Nebraska and Yusef Nader from Berlin, refined the search process and independently came across the same ancient Greek word in one of the scrolls: “πορφύραc” meaning “purple.” Farritor, who first came up with the word, won $40,000 and Nader won $10,000.
Now the race to read the entire text begins. Naples II. Papyrologist Dr. from Federico University. Federica Nicolardi said three lines of the scroll containing up to 10 letters can now be read and more are expected.
Previous scientists refuted caffeine myth.