Researchers have used artificial intelligence to virtually unwrap and read part of an ancient scroll that was carbonised when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79, uncovering 20 columns of previously hidden text on stoic philosophy. The scroll, known as PHerc 1667, was recovered from the library of a luxury Roman villa in Herculaneum, near Naples, and dates to the second or late-third century BC, making it one of the oldest in the collection.
Virtual unwrapping reveals stoic treatise
The surviving fragment, now only 8cm tall and 2cm wide, was broken in half and damaged by past handling. Without physically unrolling it, the team used machine-learning algorithms trained on high-resolution X-ray images to detect subtle differences in papyrus fibres, revealing over a metre of text. The work discusses stoic concepts such as hormē (impulse) and phronēsis (practical wisdom), warning that failing to regulate behaviour with reason leads to harmful passions.
“We don’t have the full scroll, but the surviving object was unwrapped and that’s a very important result because it shows that we are able to unwrap these objects completely,” said Dr Federica Nicolardi, a papyrologist at the University of Naples Federico II.
Possible authorship by Chrysippus
While most of the Herculaneum library consists of works by Epicurean philosopher Philodemus of Gadara, analysis suggests PHerc 1667 is a stoic treatise, possibly authored by the Greek philosopher Chrysippus, the third head of the stoic school. The text refers to his nephew and pupil, Aristocreon. “At first, we were saying this could be an Epicurean talking about stoic doctrine,” said Nicolardi. “But then I stopped and said, you know, if this was found outside of Herculaneum, we would categorise it as a stoic work.”
Vesuvius Challenge advances
The achievement, to be announced at a conference in Naples on Thursday, is the latest from the Vesuvius Challenge, launched in 2023 as a global contest backed by Silicon Valley donors. The project builds on work by Prof Brent Seales of the University of Kentucky, who demonstrated how machine learning could read ink on hidden scroll layers. The contest has awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizes to teams refining virtual unwrapping techniques.
One passage from the newly read text states: “We will inquire into something, but we will not grasp it, if in some way we depart from ourselves and from our own nature.” Another virtually unwrapped scroll revealed the words “Philodemus, On Gods, Book 8”, confirming for the first time that On Gods was a multi-book work. “These unopened Herculaneum Scrolls look like dead books, but they’re not,” said Nicolardi. “They’re starting to speak again.”
Seales said the focus has shifted from technical methods to scholarly interpretation. “People now know that this can be done and now we’re exploring what [the texts] actually mean,” he said. “For me that’s the World Cup. I just won the World Cup: that’s my victory.”
