The Vesuvius Challenge has achieved a historic discovery in the Herculaneum scrolls, revealing new texts, titles and authors unknown to history and ushering in a new era for the study of the ancient world. The discovery was made possible through high-resolution micro-CT scanning conducted at the ESRF and Diamond Lightsource in the UK.
“For nearly two millennia, many of these texts have been physically preserved but intellectually inaccessible,” Brent Seales, Vesuvius Challenge co-founder and the Stanley and Karen Pigman Chair of Heritage Science at University of Kentucky, says. “Today — after years of interdisciplinary work combining advanced imaging, artificial intelligence (AI), academic research and an innovation contest — we are finally able to read them.”
One of the oldest scrolls in the collection
Among the most significant findings announced is the recovery of substantial new text from PHerc. 1667 — a scroll housed in Naples, Italy.
The Vesuvius Challenge team has now virtually unwrapped the surviving portion of the scroll — revealing nearly 1.5 meters of continuous text and approximately 20 columns of writing.
“This scroll was deemed completely unreadable when part of it was opened in the 1980s,” Federica Nicolardi, assistant professor in papyrology at the Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, said.
“The scroll’s handwriting and internal references suggest the artifact dates from the second century B.C. or possibly from the late third century B.C. — making it one of the oldest scrolls in the collection,” she explained.
While the title and author remain unknown, both the early dating and its contents suggest a writer other than Philodemus of Gadara — the Greek philosopher whose works predominate the discoveries from Herculaneum papyri to date.
A philosophical -stoic?- treatise
According to the papyrological team’s analysis, the text does appear to be a philosophical treatise concerned with ethics, arts and human behavior, likely reflecting Stoic thought.
The recovered text preserves discussions of core Stoic concepts, including ὁρμή (hormē), or impulse, understood as the drive to act common to both humans and animals. The author appears to warn against excessive impulse — ὁ πλεoνασμός κατὰ τὴν ὁρμήν (ho pleonasmos kata tēn hormēn — when reason fails to regulate behavior and leads to a harmful passion or diversion from one’s goals.
Another key concept is φρόνησις (phronēsis), or practical wisdom — the set of intellectual activities that guide one to make the right choices and to choose virtues over vices.
Read more on the ESRF website
Image: The scrolls from Herculaneum
Credit: EduceLab