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BY MARK WORGAN

Researchers digitally unrolled and read an entire carbonised manuscript from the Roman town of Herculaneum for the first time.

The scroll, known as PHerc. 1667, was buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79, destroying Herculaneum in addition to nearby Pompeii. Although hundreds of papyrus scrolls survived the disaster, the intense heat left them carbonised and too fragile to be opened without causing irreparable damage.

Scientists began the Vesuvius Challenge project to unravel the scrolls without physically opening them and thus destroying them forever.

The latest achievement, using X-Ray scans and AI, marks the first time a Herculaneum scroll has been virtually unwrapped and read continuously from beginning to end.

For centuries, scholars faced what researchers described as a "cruel bargain": the scrolls survived the eruption, but could not be read without destroying them.

The newly deciphered manuscript consists of around 1.4 metres of papyrus containing approximately 22 columns of ancient Greek text.

Researchers used high-resolution X-ray scans to examine the sealed roll, reconstructing the papyrus layers digitally before flattening them into a readable surface. Machine-learning systems were then used to identify traces of ink that are almost indistinguishable from the carbonised papyrus.

The team said the process transformed a "blackened, rolled mass of carbonized papyrus" into a readable text without physically unrolling the manuscript.

PHerc. 1667 is believed to be part of a larger scroll. Previous attempts to open it during the 19th Century and later in the 20th Century damaged its outer layers, leaving only the tightly wound inner core intact.

From that surviving section, researchers say they have now recovered and read the preserved text in full.

According to scholars, the manuscript is a philosophical work concerned with ethics and appears to belong to the Stoic tradition.

The text discusses themes including human nature, moral development and practical wisdom. Researchers say references within the work, including a mention of Aristocreon, a nephew and disciple of the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus, suggest it was written in the 2nd Century BC.
Although parts of the papyrus have been lost, several passages have now been read for the first time in nearly 2,000 years.

Among the recovered text are the passages: "...we will inquire into something, but we will not grasp it, if in some way we depart from ourselves and from our own nature...
"Having...strained ourselves to the utmost through research and learning...possessing the same practical wisdom...
...such being the goods for us, even from the opposite evils there will be neither anything good — let alone beautiful — nor anything bad — let alone ugly — nor happiness..."

The breakthrough forms part of wider efforts to read the unopened library discovered at Herculaneum.

Researchers also reported advances with two other scrolls.

In PHerc. Paris 4, known within the Vesuvius Challenge as Scroll 1, higher-resolution imaging enabled ink to be seen directly within the three-dimensional X-ray scans for the first time. The team said the results independently confirmed text first identified during the competition's 2023 Grand Prize challenge.

Meanwhile, work on PHerc. 139 revealed the title and author of the manuscript. Researchers identified it as On Gods, Book 8 by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, one of the most prominent authors represented in the Herculaneum library.

The scans were carried out using phase-contrast X-ray microtomography at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France, in collaboration with the National Library of Naples, which houses the scrolls.

Researchers reconstructed the geometry of the tightly packed papyrus sheets, digitally flattened their surfaces and used artificial intelligence to detect hidden writing. The resulting data, transcriptions and software have been released openly, allowing other scholars to examine and build upon the findings.

The virtual unwrapping project was pioneered by Professor Brent Seales of the University of Kentucky's EduceLab. In 2023, he and fellow founders Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross expanded the work through the Vesuvius Challenge, a publicly funded international competition aimed at reading the scrolls using open-source methods.

Many members of the current research team first became involved as contestants before joining the project professionally.

Researchers say the success of PHerc. 1667 demonstrates that the technique can be applied more widely.

While one scroll has now been read in full, hundreds remain unopened, preserving what scholars describe as an entire lost library of philosophy, poetry and prose waiting to be rediscovered.