Vesuvius Scrolls: From Ancient Manuscripts to Artificial Intelligence

The Herculaneum Papyri, buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 and rediscovered in 1754, constitute the only library from the ancient Mediterranean world (except the library of Ashurbanipal and the Dead Sea Scrolls) that was found in circumstances that preserved it intact. It contains unique works of ancient Greek philosophy and Roman literature. Many of the 800 papyrus-rolls were opened physically (and thereby badly damaged), but around 270 scrolls or parts of them survive in their original condition, being too fragile to be opened.

Since 2005, computer scientist Brent Seales has toiled to discover a way to recover their texts without damaging them. His work entailed using CT technology to separate and flatten digitally the successive circumferences and “unroll” the papyrus digitally on screen. The next problem was how to recognize the ink. The latter problem was resolved in 2024 by Casey Craig’s recognition of ‘crackle’ and then the application of Machine Learning.  Upon the initiative of Nat Friedman, who established the Vesuvius Challenge, and with contributions from many members of the international AI community, three contestants, Luke Farritor, Youssef Nader, and Julian Schilliger, won the Grand Prize by producing legible images of Greek text of 16 columns from a roll that is preserved in Paris and was scanned with the Diamond Light Source at Oxford.

Another Grand Prize has been offered for 2024, focused on recovering the text from all four scrolls that are in Paris. This one-day conference is timed to bring together papyrologists and experts in Artificial Intelligence to review the progress that has been made, consider how to address the problems that remain, and to discuss future directions, including the potential for the use of AI in work on other collections of damaged manuscripts and in the humanities more widely. On the following day there will be a workshop to exchange ideas. Solutions to present problems and possible future directions may be clarified by a visit to the unique collections housed in the University of Michigan (807 Hatcher Library), which include Egyptian, Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Arabic writings on papyrus, parchment, wood, lead, waxed tablets, and potsherds, Medieval Greek manuscripts on parchment and paper, and Islamic manuscripts on paper.