AI just helped researchers read a 2,000-year-old Mount Vesuvius scroll that’s too charred to ever be opened — as X-ray images reveal ancient stoic philosophy

Using X-rays and AI, researchers from the Vesuvius Challenge project have partially decoded a 2,000-year-old scroll from Herculaneum that was destroyed by the 79 AD Mount Vesuvius eruption. The scroll, PHerc 1667, is too charred and fragile to open, but AI identified ink traces within the burned papyrus, revealing 20 columns of text about stoic philosophy, possibly written by Greek philosopher Chrysippus.