This is really exciting. If you're not aware, the scrolls at Herculaneum are an entire pagan library from the first century. They're burned, hard to recover, mostly still buried. Being able to decode them without physically digging them up and damaging them is awesome.<p>Who knows what we could find. So many books have been lost.
There is a PBS documentary about this very thing and how it got started. Very cool and worth the watch. Needless to say, the researcher had quite a few hurdles to overcome.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw44V49Fz9U" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw44V49Fz9U</a>
At the start of the article it links to a previous article on the scroll from February 2025 which has some more background details:<p><a href="https://www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine-books-news/inside-herculaneum-scroll-seen-first-time-79-ad" rel="nofollow">https://www.finebooksmagazine.com/fine-books-news/inside-her...</a><p>In particular this part:<p><i>Researchers are further refining the image using a new segmentation approach in the hopes that it will improve the coherence and clarity of the lines of text currently visible, and perhaps reach the end of the papyrus, the innermost part of the carbonised scroll, where the colophon with the title of the work may be preserved.</i><p>So the new article is indicating they were able now to decipher the title, and also indicates maybe why the title was not the first thing deciphered (presumably it is hardest to read the innermost parts.)<p>I'm curious why the title is in the inside of the scroll. That implies you have to completely open it to read the title - is that the way scrolls are usually written?
It is not very common to find pre-Kanishka works. I hope that we get some insight into human lives around this time. One of the things I find fascinating about ancient times is how similar humans of then were to us. Akrotiri (similarly preserved by volcanic eruption) was millennia before even the works in this discovery and yet seemed strangely familiar and normal when visiting.
Brent Seales was my second CS professor and taught me how to do OOP in C++. It’s always cool to randomly see the work he’s done every few months. He was working on this project nearly twenty years ago.
> Using ‘virtual unwrapping’, the scroll PHerc. 172 which is housed at the Bodleian Libraries at the University of Oxford has been identified as On Vices by the Greek philosopher Philodemus<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philodemus" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philodemus</a><p>Neat
This is so cool<p>As a history nerd and jaded software developer, I've been wondering a lot lately how I can use my tech skills for archeological research. Is there any way for someone with most of a bachelors to get into this kind of thing?
It's more like "they recognized the title of a known work" rather than deciphering it, otherwise it would be very hard to fully read it. This is truly a herculesn task ahead. I wonder if there are other scanning methods that can help
This really is a herculean act. bravo. my condolences to all those archeology students who will never brush ash away with the same carelessness as before today. Is it really worth digging destructively ?
> Philodemus was an Epicurean philosopher and poet from Gadara whose ethical teachings emphasise the pursuit of pleasure as central to a good life. He argued against rigid logic and formal rhetoric, believing that philosophy should serve practical human happiness rather than abstract intellectual debate.<p>As a layman admirer of Epicurean thought, I’m so glad that even after so many wars, destruction and tragedy over the centuries, such wonderful works have survived.
Instead of an interesting discussion about the technologies used to unravel these documents, it quickly degraded into the usual politicized issues that plague the United States, and sadly it seems, now this forum.<p>I tried emailing Dang, to remove my account with no response. HN administrators, if you read this can please remove my account?