A carbonized scroll from ash-covered Herculaneum, believed to have belonged to Julius Caesar's father-in-law, was recently read using advanced imaging diagnostic techniques, and revealed details about Plato's final hours:
A 21-year-old computer science student, Luke Farritor from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, has emerged victorious in the Vesuvius Challenge, unlocking the mysteries of the ancient Herculaneum scrolls. These scrolls, carbonized during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, have long eluded scholars due to their fragility, but recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) are bringing them to light...
📜 We had a fascinating conversation w/ classicist Richard Janko & wanted to share "The Vesuvius Challenge" in which he participates as well to unlock and read entire scrolls of the burnt Herculanum Papyri.
Imagine taking this entirely black lump of scroll that was caught in the same volcanic eruption that buried #Pompeii in 26AD, and both virtually unfolding it and seeing the original ink markings to read it.
When most people visit Naples, they go to see Pompeii but when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, it also destroyed Herculaneum and I honestly that it was the more insteresting of the two. I took this photo of the entrance to the Archaeological Park in 2022.
Here's a little experiment in digitally reconstructing ancient bronzes. On the left is a reconstruction of the famous early-mid 1st c. CE statue of Livia from the theater of #Herculaneum, as it once might have looked, polished, with stone and glass eyes and bronze eyelashes. On the right is a photo of how it currently looks, with darkened bronze, and no eyes (due to both the heat of Vesuvius and 18th c. meddling). Photo by Dr. Steven Zucker, Smarthistory.org 1/
Finally, I just wanted to show how the sculptures on top of the theater in Herculaneum might have looked in situ, overlooking the city, reflecting the first rays of the sun every morning.