AI deciphers ancient scrolls buried in Vesuvius ashes

As you might imagine, a scroll buried under the ash piles of Mount Vesuvius for nearly 2,000 years, a rolled papyrus unearthed from the ancient Roman city of Herculaneum, is difficult to Open, let alone read. But artificial intelligence has found a way.

In March of this year, academics at the University of Kentucky launched the Vesuvius Challenge, releasing thousands of X-ray images of the charred and carbonized Herculaneum scrolls, as well as data that could be used to explain the scans. Untrained AI software.

Now, two students have received the first awards: Luke Farritor, a computer science student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Yousu, a graduate student in biorobotics at the Freie Universität Berlin in Germany. Youssef Nader.

Luke Farito and Youssef Nader both independently identified the word "πορϕυρας" (or "porphyras" in modern Greek) meaning "purple", making it the first A complete word deciphered from the script using artificial intelligence software.

In ancient Rome, purple was an important color, usually representing wealth and status. It is thought that the word may refer to robes or rank, but further analysis of the scroll is needed to be sure.

In August, Luke Farito trained a machine learning model on a "burst" pattern identified on the scroll, which might just be an ink stroke. As the AI ​​found more cracks and ink strokes, new training data meant it got better at detecting other patterns, and eventually the word "porphyras" emerged.

Yusuf Nader also used a machine learning approach, but trained the AI ​​on images shaped to look like letters. Likewise, machine learning (which lets AI identify new patterns by showing it what they should look like) was able to highlight the word "porphyras" as well as some of the surrounding letters.

With enough training data, these artificial intelligence engines can spot tiny changes in texture in X-ray images, revealing ink strokes invisible to the human eye. Researchers hope to discover more soon.

The main prize of the Vesuvius Challenge is $700,000, which will be awarded to the person who can read four or more passages from these rolled scrolls. If you think you already have the ability to decipher text, you can also give it a try yourself.

The scrolls were buried underground after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79 and were not discovered until the 18th century, when workmen stumbled upon the remains of a luxurious villa that may have belonged to Julius Caesar Father-in-law Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesarinus.

Unfortunately, very few ancient texts like this have survived to this day. If these scrolls could be read without being destroyed (preventing them from crumbling to dust), we could unlock a treasure trove of information about a first century of human life and learning.

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