A Herculaneum scroll has been read for the first time
Unlocking the Past: A Herculaneum Scroll Read for the First Time
June 25th, 2026 — In a landmark achievement for archaeology and computer science, the Vesuvius Challenge has successfully read an entire Herculaneum scroll without physically opening it. The scroll, identified as PHerc. 1667, has been virtually unwrapped from start to finish.
The full preprint, Complete virtual unwrapping and reading of a rolled Herculaneum papyrus, is available as a PDF, with open-access data hosted at scrollprize.org/data and the underlying code available on GitHub.
The Tragedy of the Carbonized Library
For nearly two millennia, the library of Herculaneum existed in a state of paradoxical preservation. While the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD carbonized the scrolls—saving them from total decay—it also rendered them too fragile to be touched effectively impossible to open.
Until now, hundreds of these rolls remained sealed: their knowledge preserved, yet utterly unreachable.
The Breakthrough: PHerc. 1667 (Scroll 4)
PHerc. 1667 is the first papyrus from this collection to be digitally unrolled and read in its entirety, providing a continuous text for scholarly analysis.
Figure 1: The reconstructed writing surface of PHerc. 1667, spanning approximately 1.4 meters.
Physical State and Recovery
The scroll was not pristine. Previous attempts to open it manually during the 19th century, 1969, and the 1980s caused significant damage.
- Original Height:
- Surviving Height: (the compact inner core)
- Total Length:
- Content: Roughly 22 columns of Greek text.
The Technical Workflow
The team bypassed the need for physical intervention by using a sophisticated digital pipeline.
The Process Checklist
- Acquire phase-contrast X-ray microtomography scans.
- Map the spiraled geometry of the wound papyrus.
- Flatten the 3D surface into a 2D readable sheet.
- Train machine learning models to distinguish ink from carbonized papyrus.
- Expert review and transcription by papyrologists.
The ink detection process can be thought of as isolating a signal from the background noise of the carbonized material:
Philosophical Discoveries
1. The Stoic Treatise (PHerc. 1667)
The recovered text is a philosophical work focused on ethics, specifically regarding human nature, impulses, and moral evolution. The text mentions Aristocreon (the nephew and student of the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus), dating the work to the 2nd century BC.
Because of the physical damage, the text remains fragmentary. However, several profound passages have emerged:
"...we will inquire into something, but we will not grasp it, if in some way we depart from ourselves and from our own nature..."
"Having...strained ourselves to the utmost through research and learning...possessing the same practical wisdom..."
"...such being the goods for us, even from the opposite evils there will be neither anything good — let alone beautiful — nor anything bad — let alone ugly — nor happiness..."
2. The Epicurean Confirmation (PHerc. Paris 4)
In a separate effort involving PHerc. Paris 4 (Scroll 1), higher-resolution imaging allowed the ink to be seen directly in 3D space.
| Feature | PHerc. 1667 (Scroll 4) | PHerc. Paris 4 (Scroll 1) |
|---|---|---|
| Philosophy | Stoicism | Epicureanism |
| Author | Unknown (linked to Aristocreon) | Philodemus |
| Title | Ethics Treatise | On Gods, Book 8 |
| Key Achievement | First full end-to-end reading | 3D ink segmentation & title recovery |
The ability to read the title of a closed scroll is a game-changer, allowing historians to categorize the library's contents without needing to read every column.
Collaboration and Open Science
This project was a massive collaborative effort involving:
- The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF): Used the BM18 beamline in Grenoble for high-resolution scans.
- National Library of Naples “Vittorio Emanuele III”: The guardians of the original papyri.
- The Vesuvius Challenge Community: A global network of researchers and coders.
Open Access
To ensure the results are verifiable and scalable, the team has released their work under a Creative Commons license.
# Example of how researchers might access the data
import scrollprize_api as sp
scroll_data = sp.load_scroll("PHerc.1667")
ink_map = scroll_data.get_ink_signal(resolution="high")
print(f"Recovered columns: {len(ink_map.columns)}")
By making the tomographic data and the code available on GitHub, the project ensures that any researcher worldwide can build upon these findings to unlock the remaining sealed secrets of Herculaneum.