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AI reads ancient scroll - 4th March 2024

Thousands of years ago, people used to write on papyrus. The papyrus was rolled up into a scroll. Now, a team of three students has won a $700,000 prize. They decoded part of a burnt scroll with AI (artificial intelligence).

Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor and Julian Schilliger read five percent of the scroll. It was written in ancient Greek over 2000 years ago.

In 79 CE the volcano Mount Vesuvius destroyed the cities Pompeii and Herculaneum. Researchers found 600 burned scrolls in a villa in Herculaneum.

The competition Vesuvius Challenge asked people to decode some writing in one burnt scroll. People could win $1 million in prizes if they did.

Competitors created 3D models from CT scans of the scroll. But there wasn’t enough detail to find any text.

One competitor noticed a pattern which formed some letters. Then, people trained AI programmes to find and understand these patterns.

Next, Farritor discovered the word ‘porphyras’, which means purple. He, Nader and Schilliger then worked on programs and read over 2000 letters. They found out that the scroll was about music, food and drink.

The Vesuvius Challenge has already opened a new competition for 2024. Organisers want to understand 90 percent of four scanned scrolls.

These scrolls using AI could change our knowledge of history.