Post #4283449

📜 For nearly 2,000 years, the Herculaneum scrolls were considered unreadable—carbonized by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD into brittle lumps that crumbled when touched. Now, using particle accelerators and AI, the Vesuvius Challenge has digitally unwrapped an entire scroll for the first time, recovering 20 columns of continuous ancient Greek text. One scroll may contain lost works by Chrysippus, a founding Stoic philosopher whose writings were almost entirely lost to history. Another revealed a previously unknown 8th book of On Gods by Philodemus. With 400+ scrolls still buried in the Villa of the Papyri, this is just the beginning of recovering antiquity's lost library. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-roman-scrolls-destroyed-by-mount-vesuvius-digitally-unrolled-in-full-for-first-time/ #Archaeology #AI #History #AncientRome