Latest news with #Herculaneum
CBS News
6 days ago
- Science
- CBS News
How AI is helping unravel mystery of ancient scrolls buried in Mount Vesuvius eruption
AI is helping to solve an ancient mystery involving Mount Vesuvius. Here's how. Artificial intelligence is helping to solve an ancient mystery from the Roman Empire involving scrolls from a library that was buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted. The eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79 not only wiped out Pompeii, but also the nearby town of Herculaneum. Deep beneath the surface where a villa previously existed, archaeologists in the 18th century found 1,800 papyrus scrolls in the only ancient library in the world that is still intact. Attempts to unravel some of the scrolls ended in ashes as the library was carbonized, Brent Seales, a computer scientist from the University of Kentucky, explained. "People didn't understand what they had. So, some scrolls were actually thrown away or burned and you can't put Humpty Dumpty back together again," Seales said. Archaeologists in the 18th century found papyrus scrolls in the only ancient library in the world that is still intact. CBS News But thanks to 21st-century technology, experts are now able to examine those still intact. That technology involved a particle accelerator in England. Scientists produced light that was 10 billion times brighter than the sun, much like an X-ray. AI was then used to identify ink, no matter how faint. "I thought to myself, if you can use that technology to see non-invasively inside a human body, why can't we see everything inside an artifact like a scroll?" Seales said. Deciphering the scroll They still needed humans to decipher what the letters mean. So Seales launched the Vesuvius Challenge, a global competition offering $700,000 in prize money. Three college students took it home, making history by being the first to extract words from a carbonized scroll, nearly 2,000 years old, that had been virtually unwrapped. Thanks to new technology, experts can examine the scrolls still intact. CBS News With hundreds more scrolls to go, Seales has launched a second phase of the competition. "With AI-inspired methods that are going to usher in, you know, new results that we've not dreamed of, I don't think renaissance is too strong a word," he said. Seales said he believes there could be more scrolls out there as archaeologists are just beginning to scratch the surface. "I believe the Villa of the Papyri, which has not been fully excavated, stands a really high chance of producing more books," he said. "So much remains for us to discover."
News.com.au
31-05-2025
- General
- News.com.au
Unthinkable new find inside Pompeii could change everything
A scattering of pock marks on Pompeii's city walls may prove a mythological 'super weapon' may have been real after all. At a glance, they look like acts of vandalism found across the ancient world – from the face of the Great Sphynx to the great standing stones of Britain. Few historic sights have escaped the temptation of trigger-happy troops, hunters and tourists. And the marks of these bullet impacts still mar their surfaces centuries later. But researchers examining the scars of battle in Pompeii 's stone walls near the city's main gates for the Vesuvius and Herculaneum roads have found similar depressions. Only the can't have been caused by bullets. Pompei was buried under volcanic debris as Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79AD. Gunpowder was first used in handheld weapons 900 years later, in China. So what were these tightly grouped clusters of diamond-shaped impressions? They were too small to be ancient artillery. And too deep to be caused by hand-drawn bows. University of Campania researcher Adriana Rossi has found the impact marks in Pompeii's excavated walls are unlike anything ever seen before. And only one mythological device could have caused them. Forensic evidence The University of Campania academics scanned the impact points in 3D and digitally reconstructed the properties of the stone wall. Their models of the trajectories and penetration depths suggest the heavy iron points that caused them must have been travelling at about 109 meters per second. The deep gouges were in groups of four or five. And their even spacing suggests they were fired together, or in very close succession. Only one weapon known from ancient writings could produce such results. This is the polybolos, a 'machinegun' style crossbow-like weapon invented by the Greeks during the 3rd Century BC. But the polybolos was an antipersonnel weapon. Not a wall breaching device. The study argues the marks in the wall were made when the iron bolts fell slightly short of their intended targets. The 'gunners' would have simply upped their aim, and fired again. The evidence fits the known history of Pompeii. A century before being buried, it had been besieged. The free city had rebelled against the growing power of Rome. Its citizens wanted to restore their independence. But the famous Roman general, Sulla, was sent to quell the insurrection in 89BC. Surviving accounts tell how he attacked Pompeii 's port with 'artillery', generally thought to be catapults and large ballistae (heavy bolt throwers). General Sulla entered Pompeii once the walls were breached. The surviving defenders quickly capitulated, and the city was formally annexed as part of the Roman Republic. Most of its citizens were granted citizenship. And many of the Roman legionaries involved in the siege were gifted properties in and around the city. A century later, the coastal city had become a holiday resort for Rome's rich and famous. From myth to reality It's not entirely certain how the ancient 'machine gun' worked. No surviving example has ever been discovered. But a description of its mechanics is contained in the writings of Philo of Byzantium (Philo Mechanicus). This inventor lived in the Greek city of Alexandria, the location of history's greatest library, in about 250BC. Its university was a boiling pot of philosophy, science and engineering. Philo embraced the emerging concept of physics. He is credited with some of the earliest examples of automation and robotics. And his writings included treatises on leverage (The Mochlica) and the design of siege engines (The Belopoeica). The polybolos (which, in Greek, means 'many-shot-thrower') relied on torsion (the springlike power of tightly twisted cords bending timber) as its power source. Up to 15 bolts (large arrows) were stored in a magazine above the device. These were successively fed into the crossbow-like firing mechanism by a gear-driven chain-drive – the first known example of its kind. All the user had to do was pull a trigger, and the stored torsion power could unleash several volleys of bolts. Once expended, torsion energy could be restored by winding a windlass winch and the magazine reloaded. It was the most complex weapon system of its time.
The Sun
08-05-2025
- General
- The Sun
Tragic Pompeii discovery reveals doomed family's desperate bid to escape eruption by barricading door with bed
THE eruption of Mount Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago is largely considered to be one of the worst in history - incinerating or suffocating thousands of people living at the base of it. And archaeologists have just uncovered the heartbreaking final moments of a young family's bid to survive. 7 7 7 During a recent excavation of a house in Pompeii, archaeologists found the remains of four people, including a child, in a barricaded room. A bed had been moved against the bedroom door, in what was likely the family's last effort to escape the searing hot ash that was flooding the city. "In this small, wonderfully decorated house, we found traces of the inhabitants who tried to save themselves, blocking the entrance to a small room with a bed," Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Archeological Park of Pompeii, said in a statement translated from Italian. The findings, published in Scavi di Pompei, offer an insight into the people who knew their lives were in trouble when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD. "Excavating and visiting Pompeii means coming face to face with the beauty of art but also with the precariousness of our lives," added Zuchtriegel. The house, named casa di Elle e Frisso, was first uncovered in 2019, during the excavations of a neighboring site called the House of Leda and the Swan. It was an ordinary day when Mount Vesuvius, a major stratovolcano, erupted and entombed the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in ash. This type of volcano is known for having extremely violent eruptions due to its magma containing higher levels of gas. When Vesuvius first exploded, it sent a massive column of ash and volcanic rock into the air. The Tragic History of Pompeii This giant plume then poured down onto nearby towns, crushing houses and suffocating residents. A series of pyroclastic flows - fast-moving, searing avalanches of gas, ash and volcanic debris - then flooded through nearby towns and cities. Casa di Elle e Frisso, also known as the house of Helle and Phrixus, was a decorated home, with paintings and a banquet hall. Researchers believe the home belonged to a middle or upper class Roman family. And a lack of decorations and elements suggests they might have been renovating at the time of the eruption. The destruction of Pompeii – what happened in 79 AD? Pompeii was an ancient Roman city near modern Naples, in the Campania region of Italy. It was destroyed, along with the Roman town of Herculaneum and many villas in the surrounding area, and buried under volcanic ash in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. The violent explosion killed the city's inhabitants, with the site lost for around 1,500 years until its initial rediscovery in 1599 and broader rediscovery almost 150 years after that. The thermal energy released from Vesuvius was said to be a hundred thousand times that of the nuclear blasts at Hiroshima-Nagasaki. The remains beneath the city have been preserved for more than a millenium due to the lack of air and moisture in the ground. During excavations, plaster was injected into the voids in the ash layers that once held human bodies, allowing scientists to recreate their exact poses at the time of their deaths. Mount Vesuvius is arguably the most dangerous volcano on earth. It had been inactive for almost a century before roaring back into life and destroying Pompeii. Since then, it has exploded around three dozen more times – most recently in 1944 – and stands in close proximity to three million people. Although its current status is dormant, Vesuvius is an 'extremely active' and unpredictable volcano, according to experts. To this day, scientists are finding cultural, architectural and human remains on the banks of Mount Vesuvius. Excavations at thermal baths in Pompeii's ruins in February revealed the skeleton of a crouching child who perished in the 79 AD eruption. One painting that was found depicts the mythological twins Phrixus and Helle fleeing from their stepmother on a magical ram with a golden fleece, before Helle fell to her death in the waters below. It's this painting that gave the house its name. Other details found by archaeologists include a water basin, a bronze amulet thought to be worn by the child, bronze scales, bronze cooking pans and a hole in its roof to collect rainwater. Yet this hole is likely what let the deluge of ash swamp the home. "This is because the lapilli, the volcanic stones that risked invading the space, entered through the opening in the roof of the atrium," Zuchtriegel said. "They didn't make it, in the end the pyroclastic flow arrived, a violent flow of very hot ash that filled here, as elsewhere, every room, the seismic shocks had already caused many buildings to collapse." 7 7 7 7
The Guardian
08-05-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Surviving 200 snake bites, decoding ancient scrolls and the countries ‘flourishing'
Science correspondent Hannah Devlin joins Ian Sample to discuss three intriguing science stories from the week, from a global study that puts the UK third from bottom when it comes to flourishing, to a man who intentionally suffered more than 200 snake bites in the quest to find a universal antivenom and a breakthrough in the quest to understand the contents of the charred Herculaneum scrolls buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted
Times
06-05-2025
- Science
- Times
Scroll charred by eruption of Vesuvius finally reveals secrets
An ancient papyrus scroll long believed to have been rendered 'unreadable' by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago, is finally yielding its secrets. The scroll was found in the remains of one of the most opulent villas in the Roman town of Herculaneum, about 12 miles from Pompeii. When Vesuvius erupted, the building was buried under layers of volcanic ash and mud. The papyrus, along with hundreds of others, was 'carbonised'. Heated to extreme temperatures in the absence of oxygen, it came to resemble a badly burnt sausage, black and too brittle ever to be unrolled. The title of the carbonised scroll, with transcribed letters overlaid, was deciphered by two graduate students at the University of Wurzburg VESUVIUS CHALLENGE Yet researchers have now been able to use powerful x-ray imaging and artificial intelligence to peer at some of its innermost layers. Without having to unfurl
