Badly burnt scroll digitally unwrapped to provide first look in 2,000 years The scrolls, believed to contain Greek philosophy, were destroyed by the 79AD Mount Vesuvius volcanic eruption.
A badly burnt Roman scroll destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius has been “unwrapped” for the first time in 2,000 years by using AI.
"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," Vesuvius Challenge lead Stephen Parsons said.
The document, which looks like a lump of charcoal, was charred by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD and was too fragile to ever be physically opened.
Inside this huge machine, which is called a synchrotron, electrons were accelerated to almost the speed of light to produce a powerful X-ray beam that could probe the scroll without damaging it.
