Inside the Race to Decode Ancient Roman Scrolls | Casey Handmer for The Freethink Interview

Timestamps:

0:00: The library of Herculaneum

1:17: The Vesuvius Challenge

2:30: A unique approach

3:49: Deciphering ‘crackle’

5:01: Solving an ancient puzzle

Summary:

In AD 79, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius buried the Roman town of Herculaneum, home to the only surviving ancient library. The scrolls, carbonized by the disaster, remained unreadable for centuries. However, modern technology is changing that.

A team led by Brent Seales at the University of Kentucky has worked for 20 years to decode these scrolls. A competition, supported by Nat Friedman and later funded by Elon Musk, challenged researchers to develop AI-powered methods to "virtually unroll" and decipher the texts.

One participant, after weeks of studying CT scans of the scrolls, identified patterns resembling Greek letters. This discovery led to breakthroughs by others, including SpaceX engineer Luke Farritor and researcher Youssef Nader, who used AI to automate text recognition. Their efforts revealed 15 columns of ancient Greek text for the first time in nearly 2,000 years.

With further advancements, reading these scrolls could become significantly cheaper, unlocking lost knowledge from ancient Rome. Future excavations may uncover even more hidden libraries beneath Vesuvius.

Key Takeaways:

• AI and CT scanning technology are revolutionizing archaeology.
• Newly uncovered texts could double the known corpus of ancient Roman literature.
• Future excavations may reveal even more lost knowledge.

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