Situated near Pompeii, just 11 miles from the base of Mount Vesuvius, Herculaneum was the home of The Villa of the Papyri, named after its unique library of papyri scrolls.

The scrolls, which are illegible hunks of carbonized ash, represent the only known library of its kind and size from the classical world, are thought to contain significant philosophical and literary texts by preeminent ancient Greek and Roman scholars.

The Vesuvius Challenge has awarded tranches of prize money to participants to see who could improve the AI method for detecting the ink in the scrolls. New AI technology has ​​managed, without unrolling and therefore risking destroying the charred scrolls, to recognise letters, then words, until entire sentences are reconstructed.

A new iteration of the Vesuvius Challenge has been announced for 2024, with the goal of deciphering at least 90 percent of the four scanned scrolls by the end of the year.

Read Artnews article here.

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