What is Herculaneum Papyri and the project
Two thousand years ago, the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius (in 79 AD) buried an ancient library of papyrus scrolls now known as the Herculaneum Papyri. The scrolls were preserved by the voluminous amount of superhot mud and debris that surrounded them, and were covered in ash.
In order to read them and explore the events of that time, Friedman launched the Vesuvius Challenge 10 months ago to solve the ancient problem of the Herculaneum Papyri and they succeeded in using the AI technology to read the scrolls.
A team of researchers recreated fifteen columns from the very end of the first scroll they were able to read. These columns contain new text from the ancient world that has never been seen before.
“The author – probably Epicurean philosopher Philodemus – writes here about music, food, and how to enjoy life’s pleasures. In the closing section, he throws shade at unnamed ideological adversaries – perhaps the stoics? – who ‘have nothing to say about pleasure, either in general or in particular’,” Friedman explained.
Project’s success earns laurels from top industry researchers
Demis Hassabis, who is the CEO of Google DeepMind, congratulated the team on their success.
“Huge congrats to Nat and team, amazing work and great use of AI! Can’t wait to read some of these ancient books that were thought to be lost to the world!,” Hassabis said in a post on X.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk said, “This is cool”, before adding that “Musk Foundation will support this.”
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek also congratulated the team on the achievement.
“Huge congratulations @natfriedman @danielgross etc! Very inspiring,” he said in a post on x.
What next for researchers
Friedman said that during the year, the team’s goal is to read a few passages of text to entire scrolls.
“The scrolls stored in Naples that remain to be read represent more than 16 megabytes of ancient text. But the villa where the scrolls were found was only partially excavated, and scholars tell us that there may be thousands more scrolls underground,” he said.
The former CEO also said that the team hopes that their success will catalyse the excavation of the villa, “that the main library is discovered, and that whatever we find there rewrites history and inspires all of us.”