AI helps read papyrus scroll burnt to crisp during Vesuvius eruption

The scroll was recovered from the library of a luxury Roman villa in Herculaneum, near Naples, that was blasted by heat and buried under ash in AD79. The scroll was recovered from the library of a luxury Roman villa in Herculaneum, near Naples, that was blasted by heat and buried under ash in AD79. The surviving part of an ancient scroll that was burnt to a crisp when Mount Vesuvius erupted nearly 2,000 years ago has been virtually unwrapped and read with help from artificial intelligence. Researchers uncovered 20 columns of previously hidden text covering more than a metre of charred papyrus without physically unrolling the scroll. The age of the scroll, named PHerc 1667, makes it one of the oldest in a collection of hundreds recovered from the library of a luxury Roman villa in Herculaneum that was blasted by heat and buried under ash in the volcanic eruption that destroyed nearby Pompeii in AD79.