The “Vesuvius Challenge” Is Offering A Prize Of $700,000 To Anyone Who Can Decipher The Contents Of The Herculaneum Scrolls, Which Were Found Underneath Volcanic Mud Created By The Eruption Of Mount Vesuvius In 79 AD
During the 1700s, a collection of scrolls, which have been deemed the Herculaneum Scrolls, were unburied from the volcanic ash and rubble created by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
The ancient scrolls had originally been kept in the library of a building near Pompeii.
They were found carbonized and effectively preserved underneath 65 feet of volcanic mud. However, previous efforts to interpret the documents were unsuccessful. Anyone who attempted to unroll them would cause them to crumble into pieces.
In the nineteenth century, several scrolls were pulled apart by machine, only for the brittle papyri to disintegrate right away. As a result, researchers were unsure how to proceed.
The writing in the nearly 2,000-year-old scrolls had been considered illegible to the human eye until recently.
Back in March, the “Vesuvius Challenge” was announced, offering up a prize of $700,000 to whoever could decipher the contents of two of the scrolls.
The competition was led by University of Kentucky professor Brent Seales and financed by investors Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross.
With the help of artificial intelligence technology, progress has been made. Now, one word from the scroll can be fully read.
The word “porphyras” can be interpreted as the color purple, purple dye, or cloths of purple in Greek. It was found by a 21-year-old computer science student at the University of Nebraska named Luke Farritor.
Sergii Figurnyi – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
He won $40,000 for figuring out how to identify the first word in the scroll using X-ray CT imaging. The procedure involves scanning the tightly coiled scrolls, virtually separating the layers of the scrolls, and using advanced artificial intelligence to find ink on the pages.
A $10,000 reward was also given to Casey Handmer for being the first person to be able to spot ink and letters within an unopened scroll.
Another $10,000 was awarded to Youseff Nader, a biorobotics graduate student at Freie University Berlin, for generating a clear image from a scroll.
The grand prize of $700,000 is still up for grabs. The hope is that a partially read scroll will be seen by the end of the year.
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