A team of researchers has successfully used artificial intelligence (AI) to decode a 2,000-year-old scroll from the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum. The scroll, which is housed at Oxford University, was previously unreadable due to its fragile and damaged state.
The AI algorithm, developed by researchers at the University of Kentucky, was trained on a dataset of ancient Greek texts and was able to recognize patterns and decipher the text on the scroll. The breakthrough has provided new insights into ancient Greek philosophy and culture.
The scroll is one of over 1,800 scrolls discovered in the 18th century at the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum. Many of these scrolls remain unreadable due to damage, but the success of this AI project offers hope that more of these ancient texts can be deciphered and studied.
