Herculaneum scrolls: A 20-year journey to read the unreadable

Brent Seales, computer science professor at the University of Kentucky, discusses his work to rescue ancient text, such as that buried deep within the carbonized scrolls of Herculaneum.

[glamdring]

The material sciences field is sometimes mind boggling...being able to read such ancient texts without even unrolling them is simply stunning as an achievement.

[gkls]

My late uncle, Allen Ross Scaife, was the classics professor who helped initiate this idea and set this whole process in motion. He died in 2008. He would be so proud to see how his work has continued beyond his life. Congratulations to professor Searles and his colleagues.

[rweems]

Finally! I’m local and saw the newspaper story 20 years ago about Dr. Seales idea and project. Periodically, I’ve wondered if they’d had any success. What a thrill it must have been to finally see that ink appear on a video screen! Brilliant and well done!

[michaelhoffmann]

This just gives me chills. As a middle-aged Graeco-Roman History nerd, I just hope I live long enough to see some revelations. The list of works that are lost and/or that we only know by reference is endless. Histories of the great authors from Livy to Procopius [EDIT: as someone pointed out, this would require a time machine: Procopius was, of course, several centuries later. I meant Polybius, the Graeco-Roman historian of the Republic era], maybe someone even managed to obtain a copy of Claudius' works on the Etruscans and his dictionary of the language. That alone would be a breakthrough that can hardly be described. That's before even the possibility of totally unknown works we've not even had the slightest idea existed. That includes plays and works of fiction. The Petronius family was said to have their home in this area - what if we could get more of the (in)famous Satyricon?

[schnuerle]

I had Dr Seales as a professor in a few courses like computer graphics and Java in 1996. He was the best teacher in the department!

[daphnewilson]

Wow. I am getting chills! As a 10-year-old, I was in Herculaneum in the early days of the exploration, and it always held magic for me. (schoolteacher parents on leave) My mom took me to the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the DeYoung in San Francisco with great excitement, etc. have had an interest 60 years. Yay!

[kerolokerokerolo]

As a Historian myself, this is mindblowing! Espectacular job on bringing to life new historical sources!

[straightupup]

As a computer engineer I'll admit this is an incredible achievement.

[labibbidabibbadum]

It's about 2am, I'm stopped for a rest on a long drive in Australia and this popped up in my youtube feed. Absolutely gobsmacked. I can't wait to read more about your achievements. Congratulations on the work, and thanks for such a compelling short intro.

[plurplursen]

Years ago I read about the discovery of the scrolls. And how the scientists was storing them until the tech reached a level, so they could read them. I never thought it would happen in my lifetime. Amazing!

[zapfanzapfan]

Wow, thank you YT, this was one of the best suggestions ever!

[stevenwilson]

I needed to see something today that would give me hope for humanity, thank you.

[vintagelady]

Incredible, simply incredible. I would have loved just a little about what was actually written in the Herculaneum scrolls---more philosophy? Poetry? Or something as mundane as government records or an accounting of the wheat harvest?

[mattiaswennerhult]

This is the coolest ever and there are many more scrolls to be found at Herculaneum. Some really prominent people with private libraries lived there.

[artcurious]

This opens a lot of doors for archeologists and classical scholars, the knowledge lost at the burning of the library of Alexandria and other disasters may be possible to recover in part through other discovered texts that are put this process. Keep up the good work.

[Ice_Karma]

Incredible. I can't wait for the texts to be published!

[suspendedhatch]

What an incredible and underrated achievement. It shows what humankind would be capable of if we didn’t expend most of our resources on profit and war.

[LordTelperion]

Thank you for you and your teams' efforts! Unlocking our Graeco-Roman heritage from the Herculaneum library would be perhaps akin to resurrecting a portion of the Library of Alexandria. So, so important.

[hoominwifquats]

Amazing developments that were science fiction only 40 years ago! This is an exciting R&D project; I will be eagerly watching for updates. Congratulations on your historical success!

[maymayman]

This is the true power of machine learning techniques and it makes me so excited for the future & what we will be able to uncover using all of the information we usually ignore or can't make use of