Deciphering the ancient scrolls of Herculaneum | 60 Minutes Archive

Nearly two-thousand years ago, Mount Vesuvius buried the ancient city of Herculaneum, and with it, a library full of ancient papyrus scrolls. In 2018, Bill Whitaker reported on an international race to unravel the scrolls' secrets.

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[jessicalittle]

Imagine how much faster they could figure this out if they worked together rather than betting heads and sabotaging each other's work. But eternal is the ego and pride of man.

[agatankh]

From a CNN article from 2024 "“If you look at the level of the vocabulary (from the passages), there is a really nuanced, intellectual conversation going on here. … It just makes me excited to want to deliver to the scholars an absolutely pristine, complete copy of what this is, so that they can do their work, and then we can fully understand it, ” said Seales, who originally created the unwrapping method and has been developing the technology for nearly 20 years." I'm so glad professor Seales was able to decipher them and got the recognition he deserved.

[laurat]

An update from 2024 - The content of most of the previously opened Herculaneum scrolls relates to the Epicurean school of philosophy, founded by the Athenian philosopher Epicurus, who lived from 341 to 270 bc. The scrolls seem to have formed the working library of a follower of Epicurus named Philodemus.

[hal]

What we learn is that spite, envy, pettiness, narcissism, egoism and greed are eternal.

[MG-gjpv]

They finally get the scrolls open and all it says is “we’ve been trying to reach you about your chariots insurance”

[tankej]

Three cheers for Professor Seales, who obviously has both the passion and the chops to take us to the finish line!

[jonconnor]

As scientist myself, I can relate with the drama of the scientific community. There's a lot of sabotage, gatekeeping, deception and scheming.

[barbaradellis]

cooperation among the researchers is much more effective than competing with each other.

[badjesus]

HOW IRONIC if within those scrolls was a commentary of the hubris of man.

[Thunder_Dream_Designs]

So much educational value and it’s stopped by stupid people with stupid egos

[coaxialembryo]

I thought this video was going to be an update about the students who successfully deciphered the first code very recently, instead it’s outdated

[rky_M]

Brent Seales has blown his rivals out of the water with his results...bravo.

[ishontz]

Once the egos are satisfied maybe they’ll get somewhere. Hey why not collaborate?

[ellen]

I'm so glad there are several scientists working on these! The one from University of Kentucky did make enough progress with his AI to read part of one scroll, and it was philosophy. There is another report about it. I hope the scientists will decide to work together so we can read these within our lifetimes! I've thought there might be another book in addition to the Iliad and the Odyssey. Some great stories or poetry. That would be so amazing!

[Infinitebrandon]

Whenever this guy does a story, I know immediately give a 👍. Never disappoints

[Richard.Sanchez]

"We have been trying to contact you about your cars extended warranty." - Leviticus

[jeff__w]

This month winners of the *Vesuvius Challenge* (three students forming a “superteam”) recovered four passages of 140 characters each, with at least 85% of characters recoverable, from one of the Herculaneum scrolls, winning the Vesuvius Challenge Grand Prize of $700, 000—and the winning team’s submission included an additional eleven columns of text — more than 2000 characters total. The next challenge: read 90% of each of four scrolls from the collection of the Institut de France in Paris. (The main library of the Villa of the Papyri where the scrolls were found, if it exists, has not yet been excavated and may contain thousands of more scrolls.)

[biturboism]

Brilliant, brief, witty, and just a pleasure to watch.

[pacificxnative]

60 minutes ending in 13 minutes is wild

[subtlejanker]

The librarian raw doggin’ that ancient French scroll was wild.