For the first time, the entire charred scroll was read in the Vesuvius Challenge

Due to the degradation of papyrus over several hundred years, most texts from that era have been lost over millennia. The Herculaneum papyri were somewhat fortunate — due to the eruption of Vesuvius two thousand years ago, the scrolls were charred and buried, which allowed them to be preserved. In our time, it became possible to create three-dimensional scans of the scrolls using X-rays and to use neural networks for their "virtual unfolding." Thus, in 2023, the winners of the Vesuvius Challenge managed to read a small excerpt from one papyrus, after which several participants were hired to work on this on a permanent basis, leading to the reconstruction of the entire scroll's content. Unfortunately, most of PHerc. 1667, the deciphered scroll, was physically destroyed during several attempts to open it in the 19th and 20th centuries, so out of the 19-24 centimeters of the scroll, only 8 survived physically. It is clear that this is a Stoic text dated to the 2nd century BC, and the author has been identified as Aristocreon, a student of the famous Stoic philosopher Chrysippus. There are still hundreds of scrolls waiting for their moment, and the team does not intend to stop. New texts from the scrolls will become a regular event in the coming years.