Herculaneum Scroll Decoded for First Time Using AI and X-Ray Technology

Scientists have successfully decoded PHerc. 1667, a carbonized papyrus scroll from Herculaneum, using advanced X-ray imaging and artificial intelligence, marking the first complete digital unwrapping and reading of a Herculaneum scroll in nearly 2,000 years. The scroll, discovered in an ancient Roman villa believed to have belonged to Julius Caesar's father-in-law, survived the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD but remained physically too fragile to open without destruction. Using high-resolution phase-contrast X-ray microtomography at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble and machine learning algorithms trained to identify faint ink traces, researchers recovered and transcribed the lower portions of approximately twenty-two columns of text, revealing a philosophical treatise on Stoic ethics dating to the second or third century BC.

The recovered text discusses key Stoic concepts including "horme" (impulse) and "phronesis" (practical wisdom), with passages warning against excessive impulse and emphasizing the importance of understanding human nature and moral progress. The identification of Aristocreon—nephew and disciple of the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus—in the final preserved column, combined with the language and themes throughout, firmly places the work in a Stoic philosophical context. Although the papyrus damage creates gaps in the text, sustained arguments across multiple columns can now be followed continuously for the first time, a transformational shift from previous fragmentary readings of isolated words and patches.

This breakthrough emerged from the Vesuvius Challenge, an initiative launched in 2023 by University of Kentucky computer scientist Brent Seales and entrepreneurs Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross to encourage worldwide researchers to decipher the scrolls without physical unwrapping. Alongside the complete reading of PHerc. 1667, researchers have recovered more than seventy columns of text from a second scroll (PHerc. Paris 4) using higher-resolution imaging that makes ink directly visible in three-dimensional X-ray data, and have identified the title and author of a third scroll (PHerc. 139) as "Philodemus, On Gods, Book 8," revealing an eighth book of Philodemus's work previously unknown to scholarship.

The methodology has proven replicable and scalable, validated through independent confirmation that readings match across different data sources. Federica Nicolardi, an assistant professor in papyrology at the University of Naples Federico II who led the papyrological team, emphasized that the scroll was previously deemed unreadable when partially opened in the 1980s, receiving a readability score of zero. The virtual unwrapping reveals an area measuring approximately 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) across columns, allowing scholars to read complete philosophical arguments rather than fragmentary evidence.

The discovery unlocks intellectual access to texts that have been physically preserved but intellectually inaccessible for nearly two millennia. Of the approximately 1,800 papyri discovered in the Herculaneum library during the 18th century, only about 10 percent have been successfully read thus far, with more than 600 scrolls remaining unopened. Researchers now believe the entire collection can be deciphered using the refined virtual unwrapping technique, and the University of Kentucky has announced a new $1 million prize offering to anyone able to decipher a complete scroll by June 2027, aiming to accelerate the decoding of this unique surviving classical library.