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A reward of 15 million Turkish Liras to the one who solves the 2,000-year-old mystery!

byadmin
December 4, 2024

The Herculaneum scrolls, charred by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, are waiting to be unearthed with modern technology. Scientists are promising a great reward to artificial intelligence experts who can decipher these ancient texts.

In 79 AD, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius destroyed the Italian cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Approximately 1,800 papyrus scrolls, known today as the “Herculaneum Scrolls,” were found in Herculaneum, which lies under lava and volcanic ash.
It is thought that these scrolls contain profound philosophical and literary texts of the ancient Greek and Roman world. However, it is impossible to physically touch these scrolls, which have become charred due to the volcanic heat; they crumble into dust with even the slightest intervention.
Scientists are developing methods using X-ray scanning, artificial intelligence and ink-detection technologies to read fragile parchments without opening them. In their latest study at the Diamond Light Source scanning facility, researchers at the University of Oxford have uncovered some fragments of Greek words on a parchment called PHerc.172. However, more advanced methods are needed to decipher the entire text.
Scientists have launched a worldwide competition to develop algorithms that can completely reveal the hidden texts on the Herculaneum scrolls.
The talented engineers who win the competition will be awarded a prize of 400 thousand pounds (approximately 15 million TL).
The competition ends on December 31.
Such projects have previously won major prizes. Earlier this year, a group of students used artificial intelligence to decipher the text on a scroll at the Institut de France in Paris, winning a prize of £550,000. Scientists say, “One thing we know: We will recover the texts on these parchments. But for this, we need creative solutions from talented engineers.”
Teams in Italy are using advanced techniques such as short-wave infrared hyperspectral imaging to make the ink on the parchments visible.

Intriguing details about the last night of the famous philosopher Plato were discovered on a parchment. It was revealed that Plato criticized a slave girl’s flute playing, listened to music and was with his friends in the last hours of his life.
“This is just the beginning. There are hundreds of texts yet to be discovered,” scientists say.

The content of the texts on the Herculaneum Scrolls can help us understand the thought of the period and gain brand new information about ancient Greco-Roman culture. However, these texts must be opened digitally to prevent physical damage. “It’s an incredible feeling to see these texts for the first time after someone wrote them 2,000 years ago,” says a researcher from Oxford University.
Most of the parchments found in excavations at Herculaneum in the 1750s were initially mistaken for pieces of coal and thrown away or destroyed. Today, most of them are preserved in the National Library in Naples. In the early 1800s, some of the parchments were given as a gift to King George IV of England.
byadmin
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