First glimpse inside burnt scroll after 2,000 years

The document charred by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius is being 'unwrapped' using X-ray scans and AI.

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The document, which looks like a lump of charcoal, was charred by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD and is too fragile to ever be physically opened.

But now scientists have used a combination of X-ray imaging and artificial intelligence to virtually unfurl it, revealing rows and columns of text.

More work is needed to make the scroll fully legible to decipher its contents, but the team behind the project say the results are very promising.

"We're confident we will be able to read pretty much the whole scroll in its entirety, and it's the first time we've really been able to say that with high confidence," said Stephen Parsons, project lead for the Vesuvius Challenge, an international competition attempting to unlock the Herculaneum scrolls.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yvrq7dyg6o

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