{ "id": "AIBD-0013", "title": "Vesuvius Challenge 2023: machine-learning ink detection reads over 2,000 characters from unopened Herculaneum scroll PHerc.Paris.4", "summary": "ML ink detection let contestants read 2,000+ characters of a sealed Herculaneum scroll; papyrologists confirmed the text (Feb 2024).", "date_observed": "2024-02-05", "date_basis": "unassessed", "date_precision": "unassessed", "benefit_status": null, "source_collection": null, "source_entry": null, "account": "On 12 October 2023 the Vesuvius Challenge announced that contestant Luke Farritor, a 21-year-old student, had read ΠΟΡΦΥΡΑϹ (“purple”) inside the unopened Herculaneum scroll PHerc.Paris.4. He used a machine-learning model trained on the “crackle” pattern of ink visible in X-ray computed tomography (CT) scans. On 5 February 2024 the organizers gave the $700,000 grand prize to Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor and Julian Schilliger. Their TimeSformer-based ink-detection models recovered 15 columns and more than 2,000 characters of Greek text. Papyrologists Federica Nicolardi, Richard Janko and Robert Fowler reviewed the passages, which discuss pleasure, food and music and are probably by Philodemus. The University of Kentucky, whose virtual-unwrapping software underlies the contest, called the result a new, readable Herculaneum text.", "category": "benefit created", "unexpected": false, "purpose": "Built to detect ink in X-ray CT scans of carbonized Herculaneum papyri so that the text can be read. This benefit was that purpose.", "system": "Vesuvius Challenge grand-prize ink-detection models (TimeSformer-based ensemble) applied to virtually unwrapped CT segments", "model_version": "2023 grand-prize submission (TimeSformer-based architecture combined with multiple model architectures)", "developer": "Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor and Julian Schilliger (contestants)", "deployer": "Vesuvius Challenge (co-founded by Brent Seales, University of Kentucky)", "location": null, "domain": "Humanities / papyrology", "segment": "Open competition / academic research", "benefit_type": "Improved Knowledge Discovery", "taxonomy_note": null, "registry_ids": {}, "ratings": [ { "group": "personal", "depth": 2, "reason": "Nader, Farritor and Schilliger shared a $700,000 prize announced by the organizers on 5 February 2024. Farritor had earlier won the First Letters prize for the first word." }, { "group": "organizational", "depth": 2, "reason": "The University of Kentucky program behind the virtual unwrapping, described by Seales as a 20-year dream, was validated with a readable text." }, { "group": "societal", "depth": 3, "reason": "A previously unknown Greek philosophical text became readable. Nature reports that the method paves the way to deciphering the rest of the scrolls." } ], "ai_role": { "status": "assessed", "statement": "The contestants' ink-detection models produced the ink images from which papyrologists read the text. The ink is not visible in the raw CT data. Virtual unwrapping (non-AI) was a necessary precondition. The readings were validated by an independent papyrological review organized by the contest." }, "evidence": [ { "kind": "press release", "citation": "Vesuvius Challenge (2024). Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the scrolls! scrollprize.org.", "title": "Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the scrolls!", "url": "https://scrollprize.org/grandprize", "date": "2024-02-05", "written_by": "deployer", "quote": "Is the author Epicurus' follower, the philosopher and poet Philodemus, the teacher of Virgil? It seems very likely." }, { "kind": "press release", "citation": "Vesuvius Challenge (2023). First Letters prize announcement. scrollprize.org.", "title": "First word discovered in unopened Herculaneum scroll by 21yo computer science student", "url": "https://scrollprize.org/firstletters", "date": "2023-10-12", "written_by": "deployer", "quote": "trained a machine learning model on the crackle pattern" }, { "kind": "press release", "citation": "University of Kentucky (2024). 'Grand Prize' discovery made from 2,000-year-old Herculaneum scrolls. UKNow.", "title": "'Grand Prize' discovery made from 2,000-year-old Herculaneum scrolls", "url": "https://uknow.uky.edu/research/grand-prize-discovery-made-2000-year-old-herculaneum-scrolls", "date": "2024-02-05", "written_by": "deployer", "quote": "The grand prize contestants have clearly demonstrated what our systematic experimental framework envisioned: that virtual unwrapping and AI techniques together can deliver substantial texts" }, { "kind": "news report", "citation": "Marchant, J. (2024). First passages of rolled-up Herculaneum scroll revealed. Nature news.", "title": "First passages of rolled-up Herculaneum scroll revealed", "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00346-8", "date": "2024-02-05", "written_by": "independent", "quote": "trained their machine-learning algorithms on scans of the rolled-up papyrus" }, { "kind": "press release", "citation": "Bodleian Libraries. Inside of Herculaneum scroll seen for the first time in almost 2,000 years. 5 February 2025.", "title": "Inside of Herculaneum scroll seen for the first time in almost 2,000 years", "url": "https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about/media/feb25/herculaneum-scroll", "date": "2025-02-05", "written_by": "deployer", "quote": null } ], "replication": { "produced_by": [ "High-resolution synchrotron CT scan of a carbonized scroll", "Virtual unwrapping into flattened segments", "Ink-detection model trained on labeled crackle/ink texture", "Independent papyrological review of the output" ], "must_hold": [ "Ink must produce a detectable texture or density signal in the CT data", "Segmentation must be accurate enough to preserve letter order", "Readings must be confirmed by papyrologists, not only by model output" ], "echoes": [ { "date": "2025-02-05", "setting": "PHerc. 172 (Bodleian Libraries, Oxford), scanned at Diamond Light Source in July 2024; machine-learning ink detection revealed columns of text including the word διατροπή", "model_version": null, "outcome": "recurred", "source": "https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about/media/feb25/herculaneum-scroll" }, { "date": "2025-05-05", "setting": "First Title Prize: Marcel Roth and Micha Nowak read the end-title of PHerc. 172; a papyrological team led by Federica Nicolardi unanimously read the author as Philodemus and the title as On Vices; the book number is probably 1", "model_version": null, "outcome": "recurred", "source": "https://scrollprize.substack.com/p/60000-first-title-prize-awarded ; https://www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2025/05/06/60000-first-title-prize-awarded/" } ] }, "paired_incident": null, "headline": "ML ink detection reads 2,000+ characters of a Herculaneum scroll", "metric": "recovered 15 columns and more than 2,000 characters of Greek text", "comparator": { "against": "the scroll as it stood before the 2023 contest, with none of its text read", "before": "0% of a scroll", "after": "5% of a scroll; 15 columns of never-before-seen text, more than 2000 characters total", "basis": "measured", "quote": "In 2023 we got from 0% to 5% of a scroll. In 2024 our goal is to go from 5% of one scroll, to 90% of all four scrolls we have scanned, and to lay the foundation to read all 300 scrolls.", "url": "https://scrollprize.org/grandprize" }, "later": { "status": "scaled", "date": "2025-02-05", "note": "The same AI ink-detection approach was applied to a second scroll, PHerc. 172 at the Bodleian, scanned at Diamond Light Source in July 2024, yielding columns of text including the word διατροπή.", "quote": "One of the first words to be translated was the Ancient Greek διατροπή meaning 'disgust', which appears twice within a few columns of text. Since the scroll was scanned at the Diamond Light Source in Harwell in July 2024, the UK's national synchrotron science facility, the Vesuvius Challenge team have worked with AI to piece together the images and enhance the clarity of the text.", "url": "https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about/media/feb25/herculaneum-scroll" }, "value": { "amount": "$700,000", "what": "Vesuvius Challenge grand prize awarded for the winning submission that read the scroll", "who": "Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor and Julian Schilliger, paid by the Vesuvius Challenge", "estimate": false, "quote": "The results of this review were clear and unanimous: the Vesuvius Challenge Grand Prize of $700,000 is awarded to a team of three for their excellent submission. Congratulations to Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor, and Julian Schilliger!", "url": "https://scrollprize.org/grandprize" }, "developer_country": null, "deployer_country": "United States", "unrated_because": null, "brief_notes": null, "brief": null, "revisions": [ { "date": "2026-10-20", "change": "Record drafted from the cited sources.", "source": null, "editor": "AIBD" }, { "date": "2026-10-20", "change": "Replaced the URL slug “First Letters” with the page headline as the title of the 12 October 2023 announcement, and limited the “unanimously” reading in the First Title Prize echo to the author and title because both cited sources hedge the book number.", "source": "https://scrollprize.substack.com/p/60000-first-title-prize-awarded", "editor": "AIBD" }, { "date": "2026-10-21", "change": "Added what the benefit is measured against, what happened since, the value as stated from the cited sources.", "source": "https://scrollprize.org/grandprize; https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about/media/feb25/herculaneum-scroll; https://scrollprize.org/grandprize", "editor": "AIBD" }, { "date": "2026-10-21", "change": "Country of the deployer added from the organization's own site or a registry.", "source": "https://scrollprize.org/faq", "editor": "AIBD" }, { "date": "2026-10-21", "change": "Prose pass: a rating reason, account, purpose, the replication conditions, the system's part rewritten in shorter sentences with abbreviations expanded; facts, figures and quotations unchanged.", "source": null, "editor": "AIBD" } ], "confidence": "reported", "shade": "medium", "claim_status": "Independently reported", "claim_basis": "Sources: one independent news report and four press releases from the deployer. 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Inside of Herculaneum scroll seen for the first time in almost 2,000 years. 5 February 2025.", "title": "Inside of Herculaneum scroll seen for the first time in almost 2,000 years", "url": "https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about/media/feb25/herculaneum-scroll", "date": "2025-02-05", "written_by": "deployer" } ] } }, "provenance": { "kind": "legacy_record", "basis": "Preserved from the existing AIBD record; external sources were not rechecked.", "record_fields": [ "evidence" ], "source_refs": [] }, "review_state": "record_mapped", "coverage": "partial" }, "sources[].id": { "state": "value_present", "value": { "kind": "identifiers", "identifiers": [ "AIBD-0013-source-0001", "AIBD-0013-source-0002", "AIBD-0013-source-0003", "AIBD-0013-source-0004", "AIBD-0013-source-0005" ], "role": "Existing evidence items, in their original order" }, "provenance": { "kind": "curatorial", "basis": "Stable within the fingerprinted record version; no source content or source review has been added.", "record_fields": [], "source_refs": [] }, "review_state": "record_mapped", "coverage": "complete" }, "sources[].language": { "state": "not_assessed", "review_state": "not_assessed", "coverage": "partial" }, "sources[].relationship": { "state": "value_present", "value": { "kind": "record_fields", "fields": { "evidence": [ { "kind": "press release", "citation": "Vesuvius Challenge (2024). Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the scrolls! scrollprize.org.", "title": "Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the scrolls!", "url": "https://scrollprize.org/grandprize", "date": "2024-02-05", "written_by": "deployer", "quote": "Is the author Epicurus' follower, the philosopher and poet Philodemus, the teacher of Virgil? It seems very likely." }, { "kind": "press release", "citation": "Vesuvius Challenge (2023). First Letters prize announcement. scrollprize.org.", "title": "First word discovered in unopened Herculaneum scroll by 21yo computer science student", "url": "https://scrollprize.org/firstletters", "date": "2023-10-12", "written_by": "deployer", "quote": "trained a machine learning model on the crackle pattern" }, { "kind": "press release", "citation": "University of Kentucky (2024). 'Grand Prize' discovery made from 2,000-year-old Herculaneum scrolls. UKNow.", "title": "'Grand Prize' discovery made from 2,000-year-old Herculaneum scrolls", "url": "https://uknow.uky.edu/research/grand-prize-discovery-made-2000-year-old-herculaneum-scrolls", "date": "2024-02-05", "written_by": "deployer", "quote": "The grand prize contestants have clearly demonstrated what our systematic experimental framework envisioned: that virtual unwrapping and AI techniques together can deliver substantial texts" }, { "kind": "news report", "citation": "Marchant, J. (2024). First passages of rolled-up Herculaneum scroll revealed. Nature news.", "title": "First passages of rolled-up Herculaneum scroll revealed", "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00346-8", "date": "2024-02-05", "written_by": "independent", "quote": "trained their machine-learning algorithms on scans of the rolled-up papyrus" }, { "kind": "press release", "citation": "Bodleian Libraries. Inside of Herculaneum scroll seen for the first time in almost 2,000 years. 5 February 2025.", "title": "Inside of Herculaneum scroll seen for the first time in almost 2,000 years", "url": "https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about/media/feb25/herculaneum-scroll", "date": "2025-02-05", "written_by": "deployer" } ] } }, "provenance": { "kind": "legacy_record", "basis": "Preserved from the existing AIBD record; external sources were not rechecked.", "record_fields": [ "evidence" ], "source_refs": [] }, "review_state": "record_mapped", "coverage": "partial" }, "sources[].upstream_sources": { "state": "not_assessed", "review_state": "not_assessed", "coverage": "partial" }, "strategic_assessments[]": { "state": "not_assessed", "review_state": "not_assessed", "coverage": "partial", "family": "strategic assessments" }, "summary": { "state": "value_present", "value": { "kind": "record_fields", "fields": { "summary": "ML ink detection let contestants read 2,000+ characters of a sealed Herculaneum scroll; papyrologists confirmed the text (Feb 2024).", "account": "On 12 October 2023 the Vesuvius Challenge announced that contestant Luke Farritor, a 21-year-old student, had read ΠΟΡΦΥΡΑϹ (“purple”) inside the unopened Herculaneum scroll PHerc.Paris.4. He used a machine-learning model trained on the “crackle” pattern of ink visible in X-ray computed tomography (CT) scans. On 5 February 2024 the organizers gave the $700,000 grand prize to Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor and Julian Schilliger. Their TimeSformer-based ink-detection models recovered 15 columns and more than 2,000 characters of Greek text. Papyrologists Federica Nicolardi, Richard Janko and Robert Fowler reviewed the passages, which discuss pleasure, food and music and are probably by Philodemus. The University of Kentucky, whose virtual-unwrapping software underlies the contest, called the result a new, readable Herculaneum text." } }, "provenance": { "kind": "legacy_record", "basis": "Preserved from the existing AIBD record; external sources were not rechecked.", "record_fields": [ "summary", "account" ], "source_refs": [] }, "review_state": "record_mapped", "coverage": "partial" }, "systems[].autonomy_permissions": { "state": "not_assessed", "review_state": "not_assessed", "coverage": "partial" }, "systems[].component_role": { "state": "value_present", "value": { "kind": "text", "text": "The models detected traces of ink in CT images of the scrolls." }, "provenance": { "kind": "legacy_record", "basis": "Restated the mechanical task already described in the existing system and AI-role fields. No new source review is claimed.", "record_fields": [ "system", "ai_role" ], "source_refs": [] }, "review_state": "record_mapped", "coverage": "partial" }, "systems[].deployment_configuration": { "state": "value_present", "value": { "kind": "text", "text": "The model was part of the 2023 grand-prize submission to the Vesuvius Challenge." }, "provenance": { "kind": "legacy_record", "basis": "Separated the model, software, hardware, or operation already described in the existing record. No new source review is claimed.", "record_fields": [ "model_version", "system", "ai_role" ], "source_refs": [] }, "review_state": "record_mapped", "coverage": "partial" }, "systems[].inputs_outputs": { "state": "not_assessed", "review_state": "not_assessed", "coverage": "partial" }, "systems[].model_name": { "state": "value_present", "value": { "kind": "text", "text": "The submission combined a TimeSformer-based model with other architectures." }, "provenance": { "kind": "legacy_record", "basis": "Separated the model, software, hardware, or operation already described in the existing record. No new source review is claimed.", "record_fields": [ "model_version", "system", "ai_role" ], "source_refs": [] }, "review_state": "record_mapped", "coverage": "partial" }, "systems[].model_version": { "state": "value_present", "value": { "kind": "record_fields", "fields": { "model_version": "2023 grand-prize submission (TimeSformer-based architecture combined with multiple model architectures)" } }, "provenance": { "kind": "legacy_record", "basis": "Preserved from the existing AIBD record; external sources were not rechecked.", "record_fields": [ "model_version" ], "source_refs": [] }, "review_state": "record_mapped", "coverage": "partial", "display": { "answer": "Exact release not established.", "editor_note": "" } }, "systems[].product_name": { "state": "value_present", "value": { "kind": "record_fields", "fields": { "system": "Vesuvius Challenge grand-prize ink-detection models (TimeSformer-based ensemble) applied to virtually unwrapped CT segments" } }, "provenance": { "kind": "legacy_record", "basis": "Preserved from the existing AIBD record; external sources were not rechecked.", "record_fields": [ "system" ], "source_refs": [] }, "review_state": "record_mapped", "coverage": "partial" }, "systems[].provider": { "state": "value_present", "value": { "kind": "structured", "data": { "application_developer": "Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor and Julian Schilliger (contestants)" } }, "provenance": { "kind": "legacy_record", "basis": "Mapped from the existing case description without a new external source review.", "record_fields": [ "developer" ], "source_refs": [] }, "review_state": "record_mapped", "coverage": "partial" }, "taxonomy_crosswalks[]": { "state": "not_assessed", "review_state": "not_assessed", "coverage": "partial" }, "title": { "state": "value_present", "value": { "kind": "record_fields", "fields": { "title": "Vesuvius Challenge 2023: machine-learning ink detection reads over 2,000 characters from unopened Herculaneum scroll PHerc.Paris.4", "headline": "ML ink detection reads 2,000+ characters of a Herculaneum scroll" } }, "provenance": { "kind": "legacy_record", "basis": "Preserved from the existing AIBD record; external sources were not rechecked.", "record_fields": [ "title", "headline" ], "source_refs": [] }, "review_state": "record_mapped", "coverage": "partial" }, "version": { "state": "value_present", "value": { "kind": "identifiers", "identifiers": [ "69be89d05e9a4d4a1d283e09bee7b34a3d166f1e192bab160292b6e0df88ba2a" ], "role": "SHA-256 of normalized original case data" }, "provenance": { "kind": "curatorial", "basis": "Deterministic content version assigned by the local migration.", "record_fields": [], "source_refs": [] }, "review_state": "record_mapped", "coverage": "complete" }, "workflow": { "state": "value_present", "value": { "kind": "record_fields", "fields": { "account": "On 12 October 2023 the Vesuvius Challenge announced that contestant Luke Farritor, a 21-year-old student, had read ΠΟΡΦΥΡΑϹ (“purple”) inside the unopened Herculaneum scroll PHerc.Paris.4. He used a machine-learning model trained on the “crackle” pattern of ink visible in X-ray computed tomography (CT) scans. On 5 February 2024 the organizers gave the $700,000 grand prize to Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor and Julian Schilliger. Their TimeSformer-based ink-detection models recovered 15 columns and more than 2,000 characters of Greek text. Papyrologists Federica Nicolardi, Richard Janko and Robert Fowler reviewed the passages, which discuss pleasure, food and music and are probably by Philodemus. The University of Kentucky, whose virtual-unwrapping software underlies the contest, called the result a new, readable Herculaneum text.", "replication": { "produced_by": [ "High-resolution synchrotron CT scan of a carbonized scroll", "Virtual unwrapping into flattened segments", "Ink-detection model trained on labeled crackle/ink texture", "Independent papyrological review of the output" ], "must_hold": [ "Ink must produce a detectable texture or density signal in the CT data", "Segmentation must be accurate enough to preserve letter order", "Readings must be confirmed by papyrologists, not only by model output" ], "echoes": [ { "date": "2025-02-05", "setting": "PHerc. 172 (Bodleian Libraries, Oxford), scanned at Diamond Light Source in July 2024; machine-learning ink detection revealed columns of text including the word διατροπή", "outcome": "recurred", "source": "https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about/media/feb25/herculaneum-scroll" }, { "date": "2025-05-05", "setting": "First Title Prize: Marcel Roth and Micha Nowak read the end-title of PHerc. 172; a papyrological team led by Federica Nicolardi unanimously read the author as Philodemus and the title as On Vices; the book number is probably 1", "outcome": "recurred", "source": "https://scrollprize.substack.com/p/60000-first-title-prize-awarded ; https://www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2025/05/06/60000-first-title-prize-awarded/" } ] } } }, "provenance": { "kind": "legacy_record", "basis": "Preserved from the existing AIBD record; external sources were not rechecked.", "record_fields": [ "account", "replication" ], "source_refs": [] }, "review_state": "record_mapped", "coverage": "partial" } }, "summary": { "total": 91, "addressed": 91, "known": 41, "reviewed": 0, "record_mapped": 41, "not_assessed": 50, "complete": false, "by_state": { "value_present": 41, "not_reported": 0, "unresolved": 0, "not_assessed": 50, "not_applicable": 0, "withheld": 0, "source_unavailable": 0 } } } }