Scans unravel the mystery of scrolls
The eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79AD is one of the best-known human catastrophes and Pompeii is regularly thronged with visitors who can walk down the Roman streets, enter the houses and even view the street stalls that once sold fast food to passersby.
But 18km to the north, on the shores of the Bay of Naples, lies a second buried city, Herculaneum. It is much easier to excavate Pompeii because the volcanic ash there is relatively soft. At Herculaneum, it is rock hard and at least 25m thick, so only a fraction of the city has been opened. In 1750, a villager encountered a marble pavement while digging in his field. Over the next 14 years, the Swiss engineer Karl Weber directed excavations that had to tunnel down and explore by a flickering light. In what has been described as the first scientific excavation, he uncovered a wonderfully intact Roman villa. As he explored the rooms, he came across what looked like burnt lengths of firewood. Closer examination revealed that these were papyrus scrolls. He had made a unique find, a complete ancient library. There have been numerous attempts since to unravel and read these, but when you unroll them, they disintegrate.
The villa was evidently owned by Lucius Caesoninus, father-in-law of Julius Caesar and patron of the poet and philosopher Philodemus. By 79AD, it was probably his son who lived in this sumptuous villa and enjoyed his father's library.
In 2023, Nat Friedman, a Silicon Valley tech magnate, proposed the "Vesuvius Challenge", now with multiple sponsors offering prizes in the millions of dollars for progressive achievements: deciphering the first word, the first line and the person or team able to provide a significant part of the text.
It was advances in medical diagnoses that provided the breakthrough. Just as a scan probes into the human body, X-ray computed tomography can digitally distinguish the pages and flatten the contents of a scroll. Then infrared analyses and AI has been deployed to identify the written characters.
The first word to be deciphered was "purple" but this was the tip of the iceberg.
The prize has now been awarded to three young scientists, who have read part of a text ascribed to Philodemus, that asks "Do things that are available in lesser quantities afford more pleasure than those available in abundance?". Who knows what else awaits in this unique library.
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