Ancient scrolls are being 'read' by machine learning--with human knowledge to detect language and make sense of them

MARCH 13, 2024

Editors' notes

by C. Michael Sampson, The Conversation

A groundbreaking announcement for the recovery of lost ancient literature was recently made. Using a non-invasive method that harnesses machine learning, an international trio of scholars retrieved 15 columns of ancient Greek text from within a carbonized papyrus from Herculaneum, a seaside Roman town eight kilometers southeast of Naples, Italy.

Their achievement earned them a US$700,000 grand prize from the Vesuvius Challenge. The challenge sought to incentivize technological development by inviting public participation in the research.

It emerged from collaboration between computer scientist Brent Seales—who has a long-standing interest in non-invasive technologies for studying manuscripts—and technology investors Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross.

While the developments are exciting, technology is only part of the progress of scholarship. The work of reading and analyzing the new Greek and Latin texts recovered from the papyri will fall to human beings.

Buried in ash
Like Pompeii, Herculaneum was buried by the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE.

Much of the ancient town remains underground. But in 1752, excavation uncovered hundreds of papyrus scrolls in the library of an elaborate Roman villa. The Herculaneum papyri are the largest surviving example of an intact ancient library preserved in the archaeological record: the library was found as it actually existed in 79 CE.

More:
https://phys.org/news/2024-03-ancient-scrolls-machine-human-knowledge.html