PREVIEW

Almost two millennia ago, the eruption of Vesuvius in AD79 not only buried the city of Pompeii and the town of Herculaneum but enveloped an ancient library of papyrus scrolls, now known as the Herculaneum Papyri.
Discovered in the 18th century, over 800 of these scrolls are housed in a Naples library. However, due to their carbonised ash state, opening them risks severe damage. The challenge became deciphering these rolled-up scrolls. Therefore, although the scrolls are preserved - they had not been read since Roman times - until now.
On March 15, 2023, Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, and Brent Seales initiated the Vesuvius Challenge. Using high-resolution CT scans from the Diamond Light Source particle accelerator near Oxford, the scrolls were scanned.

The facility produces a parallel beam of X-rays at high flux, allowing for fast, accurate, and high-resolution imaging. The X-ray photos are turned into a 3D volume of voxels using tomographic reconstruction algorithms, resulting in a stack of slice images.

The next step is to identify individual sheets of papyrus in 3D space using a tool called Volume Cartographer, which uses a combination of automatic algorithms and manual adjustments to map out large areas of papyrus. CT scans were then used to detect the ink and patterns in it that could be decihered by contestants using machine learning models and domain adaptation techniques.

More than $1 million in prize money was made available to those who could decipher the scrolls attracted a global community employing computer vision, machine learning, and dedication.
In less than a year, by December 2023, success was achieved. After 275 years, the scrolls became readable, unveiling the thoughts of ancestors preserved in mud and ash.
The Vesuvius Challenge Grand Prize of $700,000 was awarded to Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor, and Julian Schilliger. Their submission stood out, meeting criteria set in March: 4 passages of 140 characters, with 85% recoverable characters. The submission included over 2000 characters and three different model architectures. The winners were announced on Monday (05February2024).
Nader says: “I feel incredibly blessed to contribute to this historic achievement with my teammates Julian and Luke. In a way, it feels like building on my ancestors' innovative spirit from 5,000 years ago with their invention of Papyrus sheets. By bringing an ancient scroll back from the ashes, we continue to celebrate and document the incredible story of human ingenuity.”

His teammate, Farritor adds that it is the “privilege of a lifetime” to help scholars read the lost scrolls.

Schilliger continues: “It's an honor to contribute to the rediscovery of a chapter in human history that was once partially obscured. Being a co-recipient of the Vesuvius Grand Prize alongside Youssef and Luke is not only a career-defining milestone but also a life changing experience.”
Among other achievements, their ink detection and auto-segmentation approaches were unparalleled. Segmentation Tooling Prize runners-up, each receiving $50,000, were also acknowledged.
Approximately 5% of the first scroll has been unrolled and read. Preliminary transcriptions revealed never-before-seen text from antiquity. The text, focusing on pleasure in Epicurean philosophy, hints at a philosophical treatise by Greek philosopher Philodemus, possibly from a four-part treatise on music.
Outlining the importance of the text, the classicist Richard Janko writes: “Is the author Epicurus' follower, the philosopher and poet Philodemus, the teacher of Vergil? It seems very likely. Is he writing about the effect of music on the hearer, and comparing it to other pleasures like those of food and drink? Quite probably.
“Does this text come from his four-part treatise on music, of which we know Book 4? Quite possibly: the title should soon become available to read.

“Is the Xenophantus who is mentioned the celebrated flute-player, or the man famous in antiquity for being unable to control his laughter, or someone else entirely? So many questions! But improvements to the identification of the ink, which can be expected, will soon answer most of them. I can hardly wait.”
With the aim of reading 90% of the scrolls in 2024, the Grand Prize will be awarded to the first team achieving this milestone. This ambitious project not only unlocks ancient wisdom but showcases the potential of advanced technology in deciphering historical artifacts.