How the Herculaneum scrolls are being read without being opened
TL;DR — Vesuvius turned a Roman villa’s library into charcoal in AD 79; X-ray scans and machine learning now read its scrolls unopened, and in 2026 one was read end to end.
The scrolls from the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum are being read without being unrolled. A scroll is scanned with X-rays, software flattens its layers into a virtual sheet, and a machine-learning model finds the ink. In 2023 a student read the first word inside an unopened roll; in February 2024 a team of three won a $700,000 prize for recovering more than 2,000 characters; and the project’s site now reports that “in 2026, PHerc. 1667 became the first Herculaneum scroll to be virtually unwrapped and read end to end.”
Quick facts
- When
- Buried in AD 79; papyri excavated 1752–1754; first word read from an unopened scroll announced October 12, 2023; grand prize February 5, 2024
- Where
- The Villa of the Papyri, outside Herculaneum on the Bay of Naples
- Who
- Karl Weber's excavators; Brent Seales of the University of Kentucky; Luke Farritor, Youssef Nader and Julian Schilliger
- Outcome
- X-ray scans and machine learning recovered more than 2,000 characters from one unopened roll, and by 2026 a whole scroll was read end to end
The library in the villa
The library was found by tunneling. Systematic exploration of Herculaneum, the Herculaneum Society at Oxford writes, began under the Bourbon king Charles III in 1738, and in 1750 “a superb polychrome mosaic floor came to light at the bottom of a well.” In 1752 the team of the Swiss engineer Karl Weber “began to encounter papyri.” Between 1752 and 1754, “some 1800 fragments of ancient papyrus scrolls representing perhaps 800 original volumes were excavated,” which together “constitute the largest surviving library from the Greco-Roman world.”
Most of the texts opened so far are works of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus of Gadara, whom the Society links to Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, the father-in-law of Julius Caesar.
Saved by the heat
The eruption both destroyed and kept them. “The heat of the pyroclastic flow, while instantly fatal to any living being in the town, was just right to carbonise these papyri,” the Society explains, “instead of merely setting them alight. The subsequent mud-flow sealed everything in an oxygen-free environment, which prevented further decay.” The Vesuvius Challenge describes “twenty meters of hot mud and ash” over the villa.
Opening them destroyed them
For two centuries the only way to read a scroll was to open it. “Early efforts to unroll the papyri were ruinous,” the Society writes. “Scrolls were cut in half vertically, with much loss of fabric,” and as each exposed layer was transcribed “it was scraped off, and thus destroyed, so as to read the layer underneath.” A few, the Vesuvius Challenge records, were “painstakingly unrolled by a monk over several decades,” and “more than six hundred remain unopened and unreadable.”
Reading inside the roll
The method was built over two decades at the University of Kentucky. In 2009, the university’s EduceLab reports, Brent Seales and his team went to the Institut de France “to perform the first-ever micro CT scans of completely sealed Herculaneum scrolls.” In 2015 they used virtual unwrapping to read a charred scroll from En-Gedi in Israel, “revealing it to be the beginning of the Book of Leviticus.” The Herculaneum ink, made of carbon like the papyrus, was much harder to see.
In March 2023 Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross and Seales launched the Vesuvius Challenge, released high-resolution scans made at the Diamond Light Source particle accelerator, and offered more than $1 million in prizes.
A word, then columns
The first word came that year. In early August, the Challenge reports, a contestant, Casey Handmer, noticed a “crackle pattern” that looked like ink; Luke Farritor, a computer-science student and SpaceX summer intern, trained a model on it and found the Greek word for “purple,” announced on October 12, 2023.
On February 5, 2024, the grand prize of $700,000 went to Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor and Julian Schilliger. Their submission met the goal of four passages of 140 characters each, and “includes another 11 (!) columns of text — more than 2000 characters total.” The subject, the Challenge writes, “is pleasure, which, properly understood, is the highest good in Epicurean philosophy,” and one passage asks whether things that are scarce are more pleasant than those that are abundant. Philodemus “is thought to have been the philosopher-in-residence of the villa.”
Key facts
- Some 1,800 fragments, perhaps 800 original rolls, were excavated from the Villa of the Papyri in 1752–1754 (Herculaneum Society).
- The heat of the eruption carbonized the papyri, and the mud-flow sealed them from oxygen (Herculaneum Society).
- Early unrolling cut scrolls in half and scraped away each layer after reading it; more than 600 remain unopened (Herculaneum Society; Vesuvius Challenge).
- Brent Seales’s team made the first micro-CT scans of sealed Herculaneum scrolls in 2009 and read the En-Gedi scroll in 2015 (University of Kentucky).
- The first word from an unopened scroll, “purple,” was announced on October 12, 2023 (Vesuvius Challenge).
- The $700,000 grand prize went to Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor and Julian Schilliger on February 5, 2024, for more than 2,000 characters (Vesuvius Challenge).
- In 2026 PHerc. 1667 became the first Herculaneum scroll read end to end (Vesuvius Challenge).
FAQ
How are the Herculaneum scrolls read without opening them?
They are scanned with high-resolution X-ray CT, software traces and flattens each layer of papyrus, and a machine-learning model detects the carbon ink.
What is the Villa of the Papyri?
A large villa outside Herculaneum, buried by Vesuvius in AD 79, whose library of carbonized papyri is the largest surviving library from the Greco-Roman world, according to the Herculaneum Society.
Who read the first word in a Herculaneum scroll?
Luke Farritor, a computer-science student, using a machine-learning model; the word, Greek for "purple," was announced on October 12, 2023.
Who won the Vesuvius Challenge grand prize?
Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor and Julian Schilliger, who shared $700,000 in February 2024 for recovering more than 2,000 characters of text.
What do the Herculaneum scrolls say?
Most of those opened are Epicurean works, many by Philodemus. The scroll read in 2023–24 discusses pleasure, which Epicureans counted the highest good.
Sources
- The Herculaneum Society (Oxford), "Papyri"
- The Herculaneum Society (Oxford), "The Villa of the Papyri," by R. L. Fowler
- Vesuvius Challenge, home page and "Our story"
- Vesuvius Challenge, "First word discovered in unopened Herculaneum scroll by 21yo computer science student" (October 12, 2023)
- Vesuvius Challenge, "Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded" (February 5, 2024)
- University of Kentucky, EduceLab, "Herculaneum Scrolls: A 20-year Journey to Read the Unreadable" (2023)
Cite this article
- APA
- Song Letter. (2026, October 11). How the Herculaneum scrolls are being read without being opened. Our Earth's History. https://ourearthshistory.com/europe/classical/reading-herculaneum-scrolls-without-opening/
- Chicago
- Song Letter. “How the Herculaneum scrolls are being read without being opened.” Our Earth's History, October 11, 2026. https://ourearthshistory.com/europe/classical/reading-herculaneum-scrolls-without-opening/.
- MLA
- Song Letter. “How the Herculaneum scrolls are being read without being opened.” Our Earth's History, 11 Oct. 2026, https://ourearthshistory.com/europe/classical/reading-herculaneum-scrolls-without-opening/.
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