HERCULANEUM — Researchers used artificial intelligence to virtually unwrap and read the surviving part of an ancient papyrus scroll named PHerc 1667 without physically unrolling it. The achievement of reading scroll PHerc 1667 was announced at a conference in Naples.

The scroll, which dates to the second or late-third century BC, discusses stoic philosophy on ethics, art, and human behavior. It was recovered from the library of a Roman villa in Herculaneum, buried under ash during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79. Analysis by Federica Nicolardi, a papyrologist at the University of Naples Federico II, and her colleagues suggests the text is a stoic treatise, possibly authored by the Greek philosopher Chrysippus.

The text refers to Aristocreon, who was Chrysippus's nephew and pupil. Chrysippus was the third head of the stoic school. Researchers uncovered 20 columns of previously hidden text covering more than one meter of the charred papyrus. The surviving portion of scroll PHerc 1667 is 8cm tall and 2cm wide. Scroll PHerc 1667 had been broken in half, and previous attempts to unwrap it caused outer layers to flake off or disintegrate.

The text in scroll PHerc 1667 discusses the stoic concept of hormē, or impulse. It warns that failing to regulate behavior with reason can lead to harmful passions and diversion from one’s goals. The text also discusses phronēsis, or practical wisdom, which is described as the highest virtue a person can have in stoic philosophy.

The Vesuvius Challenge launched in 2023 as a global contest to read carbonized scrolls. It has awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizes to teams using artificial intelligence and software to virtually unwrap scrolls and read text from high-resolution X-ray images. The challenge was founded on work by Brent Seales, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky. Seales demonstrated that machine-learning algorithms could be trained to read ink on hidden layers of scrolls by spotting subtle differences in papyrus fibers in X-ray images. Nicolardi stated that the success shows the ability to unwrap these objects completely.