AI helps researchers read ancient scroll burned to a crisp in Vesuvius eruption

PHerc. 172, one of three Herculaneum scrolls housed at the University of Oxford’s Bodleian libraries, was revealed to have the word ‘disgust’ written in ancient Greek. Photograph: Vesuvius Challenge

Researchers have peered inside an ancient scroll that was burned to a crisp in the volcanic eruption that destroyed Pompeii nearly 2,000 years ago.

The scroll is one of hundreds found in the library of a Roman mansion in Herculaneum, a town on the west coast of Italy that was wiped out when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79.