They were turned to carbonized lumps by the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.
Now, scientists are offering £400,000 to the person who can decipher the charred Herculaneum Scrolls.
These ancient rolls of papyrus – a material similar to paper – are thought to contain profound philosophical and literary texts from ancient Greek and Roman scholars.
The problem is that any attempts to unroll the burnt cylinders will turn them to dust, because they are so fragile.
So, scientists have been turning to ingenious methods such as x-ray scanning, ink-detection software and AI to virtually ‘unroll’ them.
Scientists at the University of Oxford have successfully used x-ray scanning to reveal portions of text on one of the scrolls, officially called PHerc.172.
But experts are putting a call-out to clever engineers who can develop AI methods to reveal more of the hidden text – with the hefty cash prize up for grabs.
Earlier this year, students won $700,000 (£550,000) when they used AI to work out what’s written on another one of the scrolls, held by the Institut de France in Paris.
The Bodleian scroll officially known to scholars as PHerc.172 was one of around 1,800 papyrus scrolls turned to carbon by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79
Scientists say freshly-revealed text is Greek and they’ve interpreted a few fragments of words, although they’re still yet to decipher full sentences
Scientists at the University of Oxford used the nearby Diamond Light Source scanning facility in Harwell, Oxfordshire to reveal new text on Bodleian scroll PHerc.172, held at Oxford’s Bodleian Library.
They say the freshly-revealed text is Greek and they’ve interpreted a few fragments of words, but they’re still yet to decipher full sentences.
‘We’re already on the cusp of recovering complete words,’ they say in a statement.
At the bottom of one segment, there might be the beginning of διατροπή, a word found in other Herculaneum scrolls that would mean something like ‘confusion, agitation, or disgust’.
Similarly, in another segment, the sequence of Greek letters τυγχαν may be the beginning of the verb τυγχάνω, which means ‘to happen’.
Intriguingly, the ink seem to appear more clearly in the outer wraps of the scroll, and in some cases, is it only clear every other line – which suggests the scribe dipped their pen once every two lines.
‘A human hand wrote this text 2,000 years ago, and it’s an unforgettable experience to be the first person in that time to see it,’ the team say.
These ancient rolls of papyrus are thought to contain profound philosophical and literary texts from ancient Greek and Roman scholars
Map shows Herculaneum and other cities affected by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. The black cloud represents the general distribution of ash and cinder
The deadline for this year’s grand prize – awarded for recovering complete passages from inside several of the Herculaneum scrolls – is December 31.
Nearly £400,000 in prizes is on offer to anyone who can make further progress to read some of the Herculaneum scrolls, reports the Times.
‘One thing we know will happen: we’re going to recover the text from this scroll but we’ll need your help to do it,’ the team add.
In all, around 1,800 papyrus scrolls that were turned to carbon in the eruption almost 2,000 years ago.
They were housed in a large villa in the Italian town of Herculaneum, which was just one of the towns smothered by super-heated volcanic deposits.
In the 1750s, excavations began on the villa and a number of scrolls were destroyed or thrown away in the belief that they were lumps of charcoal.
Unfortunately, hundreds more were destroyed during attempts to unroll the scrolls, which are mostly held at the National Library in Naples.
A few hundred scrolls were excavated that were never opened, and remain rolled up with their contents sealed away.
In 1802 or 1803, PHerc. 172 and five other scrolls were given by the king of Naples and Sicily, Ferdinand IV, to the future George IV in England
In the early 1800s, Bodleian scroll and five other scrolls were given to the future George IV of England by Ferdinand IV, the king of Naples and Sicily – allegedly in exchange for some kangaroos.
Modern attempts have focused on digital methods to read the texts without physically unrolling the papyri to prevent damage.
Known as ‘virtual unrolling’, such attempts commonly use X-rays and other light sources to scan the objects and reveal previously unknown text.
In Italy, a team used a technique called shortwave infrared hyperspectral imaging, which picks up variations in the way light bounces off the black ink on the papyrus.
A newly discovered passage from one of the scrolls using this technique has revealed that Plato spent his last night blasting a slave girl’s ‘lack of rhythm’ as she played the flute.
The philosopher, who was suffering from a fever, had been listening to music and welcoming guests before he died at the age of 80 or 81 in around 348BC.
Graziano Ranocchia, a papyrologist from the University of Pisa in Italy, said: ‘Plato is just the start’.
