PHerc.172
Using advanced artificial intelligence techniques, it was possible to read PHerc manuscripts. 1667, PHerc. 172 and PHerc. 139.
An international team of researchers managed to virtually read two parchments charred by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, without physically unrolling them.
The work is part of the project Vesuvius Challengewhich uses advanced imaging techniques and artificial intelligence to recover texts preserved under the ash that destroyed the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Experts announced that they managed to decipher around 1.5 meters of continuous Greek text distributed over 20 columns of one of the manuscripts, identified as PHerc. 1667. A second parchment, PHerc. 172revealed more than 70 columns of text.
According to researchers, this is the first time that a fully rolled up parchment can be read at such length without suffering any physical damage. The process combines high-resolution images obtained by X-rays in a synchrotron with artificial intelligence algorithms capable of identifying the ink used by Roman scribes. Afterwards, papyrology experts analyze and translate the recovered texts.
The handwriting and text style of the PHerc manuscript. 1667 indicate that it was written between the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, making it one of the oldest documents in the Herculaneum collection. Researchers consider it unlikely that it was authored by the epicurean philosopher Philodemus of Gadara, responsible for much of the library found in the ancient Roman villa.
Instead, the text appears to correspond to a stoic treatise on ethics and human behavior. According to , among the references identified, Aristocreon, nephew and disciple of the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus, appears.
The team also announced another relevant discovery in a third scroll, the PHerc. 139where the title of a new volume of the work On the Gods, by Philodemus, was identified. The reference confirms that the treatise spanned at least eight books, leading researchers to re-examine other manuscripts in the collection in search of new volumes.
Despite these advances, more than 600 Herculaneum scrolls have still not been deciphered. Experts believe that the library was part of a villa that may have belonged to Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, preserving one of the most important literary collections surviving from Antiquity.
