AI reads old document - 4th March 2024
Before paper, people wrote on long rolls of papyrus. The name for a long roll of papyrus is a scroll. Three students read part of a very old scroll. They won a $700,000 prize.
No one can open the scroll. It's completely burned. 2,000 years ago, the volcano Vesuvius burned the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The document was in Herculaneum.
The team was Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor and Julian Schilliger. They worked together online. They used AI (artificial intelligence) to read the scroll.
The Vesuvius Challenge started in 2023. The competition shared CT scans of the scroll. It offered $1 million in prizes. First, Farritor read one word: 'porphyras'. This means purple in ancient Greek.
Then, Farritor worked together with Nader and Schilliger. Their AI program read 2000 letters. This was five percent of the scroll. It was about music, food and drink.
The next competition is to read 90 percent of four scrolls. The information in the scrolls may change history!
Interactive Games
Comprehension
Answer questions about the news report. Select the correct answer from 4 options. There are 5 questions.
What's the word you hear?
Complete the sentences. Listen and write the missing word. There are up to 10 questions.
What's the phrase you hear?
Complete the sentences. Listen and write the missing phrase. There are up to 5 questions.
Sentence muddle
Read the sentences. Put them in the same order as the news report. There are 4 sentences.
No spaces in text
Read the sentences. Find the spaces between the words. There are up to 5 questions.
Put the sentence back together
Put the sentence parts in the correct order. Each sentence is in 4 pieces. There are up to 5 questions.
Construct sentences
Make sentences. Select each word in the correct order. There are up to 3 questions.
No capital letters
Read the sentences. Find the missing capital letters. There are 5 sentences.
Spelling jumble
The letters of one word are in the wrong order. Read the sentence. Spell the word correctly. There are up to 10 questions.
Missing vowels
Complete the sentences. Select the correct vowel for each space. There are up to 5 sentences.
Missing words
Complete the sentences. Select the correct word. There are up to 5 questions.
Adjectives
Read the sentence. Select the missing word. Check your answer.
Prepositions
Complete the sentences. Select the correct preposition. There are up to 5 questions.
Nouns
Complete the sentences. Select the correct noun. There are up to 5 questions.
Argentina
Brazil
Chile
France
Germany
Indonesia
Italy
Japan
Kazakhstan
Nigeria
Poland
Spain
Turkey
United States
Uzbekistan
