During Mount Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 C.E., thousands of papyrus scrolls were scorched, rendering their contents unreadable. But now, researchers […]

Scientists are leveraging a combination of artificial intelligence and X-rays to begin unraveling the mystery of the charred scrolls.

For the past two years, citizen scientists and scholars have been working to reveal the previously hidden texts of the Herculaneum scrolls

Scientists then used AI to piece together the images, search for ink that reveals where there is writing, and enhance the clarity of the text. The process led to a 3D image of the scroll that allowed experts to unroll it virtually, using a process called segmentation.

Learn how scientists used AI and X-ray technology to digitally open a Roman scroll that was burned and buried during the catastrophic Mount Vesuvius eruption.

A breakthrough out of the Vesuvius Challenge builds on past efforts to virtually “unroll” fragile papyrus documents carbonized into hardened lumps by the volcanic blast.

Researchers have taken one step closer to understanding the past after they managed to use artificial intelligence to read one of the hundreds of scrolls that were discovered in the ruins of the ancient city of Pompeii.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, a library of papyrus scrolls was incinerated in the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum. Now, for the first time, researchers have unfurled the carbonized remains of one such scroll—not physically,