Deciphering the ancient scrolls of Herculaneum | 60 Minutes Archive

In A.D. 79, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius buried Pompeii and the lesser-known metropolis of Herculaneum – and with it, a library filled with practically 2,000 papyrus scrolls. Researchers found the library, housed in a villa thought to have belonged to Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, within the 1700s. The scrolls it contained quickly grew to become an object of fascination for students, who’ve lengthy believed that they maintain troves of historic data. However studying what was written within the scrolls can be difficult: the volcanic eruption turned the scrolls into brittle, charred lumps, stopping researchers from unraveling their contents with out turning them to ash. The scrolls’ inside textual content remained inaccessible – till now.

Three college students – Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor and Julian Schilliger – cracked the code on one of many scrolls final yr. Leveraging a mix of machine studying and pc imaginative and prescient, the scholars deciphered a bit of 1 scroll: a philosophical passage on pleasure. The scholars had been aided by the groundbreaking work of College of Kentucky professor Brent Seales, who has spent the final twenty years making an attempt to unlock the secrets and techniques of the scrolls. Seales pioneered a way for unwrapping the scrolls just about, utilizing highly effective X-rays and synthetic intelligence. The three college students refined his strategy, enabling them to learn the scroll with out ever bodily opening it. 

Seales co-founded the Vesuvius Problem, a world competitors targeted on resurrecting the traditional library. The scholars took dwelling the competitors’s $700,000 grand prize in February, however the problem is way from over. The scholars uncovered simply 5% of 1 scroll. The following prize might be awarded to the primary staff that may decipher 90% of the 4 scrolls Seales and his staff have scanned.