Nearly 2,000 years after Mount Vesuvius buried the Roman town of Herculaneum, researchers have read an ancient scroll without physically opening it. Using advanced X-ray scans and artificial intelligence, they recovered the full surviving text from a sealed papyrus for the first time. The work gives scholars access to writing hidden since CE 79.
The project comes from the Vesuvius Challenge, an international effort bringing together computer scientists, imaging experts, and papyrologists. Their goal is simple. Read the carbonized scrolls without damaging them.
The scroll, known as PHerc. 1667 or Scroll 4, survived the volcanic eruption because intense heat turned the papyrus into a fragile block of carbon. Any attempt to unroll such scrolls by hand risks destroying them. Earlier efforts during the 1800s and again in the late 1900s damaged the outer layers, leaving only the tightly packed inner core.
Instead of opening the scroll, the team scanned it with high-resolution X-rays at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France. They rebuilt the rolled pages in three dimensions, flattened them into digital sheets, and trained AI models to spot ink almost invisible against the burned papyrus. Papyrologists then checked every reading and produced the Greek text.
Researchers recovered about 1.5 meters, or nearly 5 feet, of continuous writing across about 20 surviving columns. Parts of the papyrus are missing, yet the preserved section has now been read from beginning to end. This marks the first complete digital reading of a sealed Herculaneum scroll.
The text appears to be a work on Stoic ethics. It discusses human nature, self-control, learning, and moral growth. One passage says people lose their way when they drift from their own nature. Another speaks about gaining wisdom through study and careful thought.
The final preserved column names Aristocreon, the nephew and student of the Greek Stoic philosopher Chrysippus. The language and handwriting point to the second century BCE, making the scroll one of the oldest in the Herculaneum library. Since very little written by Chrysippus survives today, scholars think the scroll belongs to his school of thought and could even preserve a work linked to him.
The team reported progress on other scrolls as well. A higher resolution scan of PHerc. Paris 4 revealed ink directly inside the three dimensional X-ray data. The new images matched text recovered during earlier work, giving scholars fresh proof the readings were correct.
Another sealed scroll, PHerc. 139, revealed its title without being opened. Researchers identified the work as Philodemus’ On Gods, Book 8. Scholars already knew the treatise existed, though the new finding shows the work stretched across at least eight books. They now plan to search other scrolls for the missing parts of the series.
More than 600 unopened Herculaneum scrolls still wait for study. Most came from the Villa of the Papyri, a Roman estate thought to have belonged to the father-in-law of Julius Caesar. The same digital methods now offer a path toward reading many more ancient texts while keeping the fragile scrolls intact.