{"id":246052,"date":"2025-05-18T19:55:24","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T19:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/aerospace\/these-ancient-scrolls-have-been-a-tantalizing-mystery-for-2000-years-researchers-just-deciphered-a-title-for-the-first-time\/"},"modified":"2025-05-18T19:55:24","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T19:55:24","slug":"these-ancient-scrolls-have-been-a-tantalizing-mystery-for-2000-years-researchers-just-deciphered-a-title-for-the-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=246052","title":{"rendered":"These Ancient Scrolls Have Been a Tantalizing Mystery for 2,000 Years. Researchers Just Deciphered a Title for the First Time"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Mount Vesuvius\u2019 eruption preserved the Herculaneum scrolls beneath a blanket of ash. Two millennia later, X-ray scans show that one of them is a philosophical text called \u201cOn Vice\u201d<\/h2>\n
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\n \"Ellen\n <\/div>\n
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Ellen Wexler<\/a><\/p>\n

– Assistant Editor, Humanities<\/span><\/p>\n

\n\"PHerc.
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The scroll previously known only as PHerc. 172 was written by the Epicurean philosopher\u00a0Philodemus.
\n Vesuvius Challenge \/ Bodleian Libraries, Oxford University<\/span>
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In the 1750s, an Italian farmer digging a well stumbled upon a lavish villa in the ruins of Herculaneum. Inside was a sprawling library with hundreds of scrolls, untouched since Mount Vesuvius\u2019 eruption<\/a> in 79 C.E. Some of them were still neatly tucked away<\/a> on the shelves.<\/p>\n

This staggering discovery was the only complete library<\/a> from antiquity ever found. But when 18th-century scholars tried to unroll the charred papyrus, the scrolls crumbled to pieces. They became resigned to the fact that the text hidden inside wouldn\u2019t be revealed during their lifetimes.<\/p>\n

In recent years, however, researchers realized that they were living in the generation that would finally solve the puzzle<\/a>. Using artificial intelligence, they\u2019ve developed methods to peer inside the Herculaneum scrolls without damaging them, revealing short passages<\/a> of ancient text.<\/p>\n

This month, researchers announced<\/a> a new breakthrough. While analyzing a scroll known as PHerc. 172, they determined its title: On Vices<\/em>. Based on other works, they think the full title is On Vices and Their Opposite Virtues and in Whom They Are and About What<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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\"PHerc.

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The scan revealed letters spelling out the scroll’s title.<\/p>\n

Vesuvius Challenge<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe are thrilled to share that the written title of this scroll has been recovered from deep inside its carbonized folds of papyrus,\u201d the Vesuvius Challenge<\/a>, which is leading efforts to decipher the scrolls, says in a statement<\/a>. \u201cThis is the first time the title of a still-rolled Herculaneum scroll has ever been recovered noninvasively.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Vices<\/em> was written by Philodemus<\/a>, a Greek philosopher who lived in Herculaneum more than a century before Vesuvius\u2019 eruption. Born around 110 B.C.E., Philodemus studied at a school<\/a> in Athens founded several centuries earlier by the influential philosopher Epicurus, who believed in achieving happiness by pursuing certain specific forms of pleasure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will be a great opportunity to learn more about Philodemus\u2019 ethical views and to get a better view of the On Vices<\/em> as a whole,\u201d Michael McOsker<\/a>, a papyrologist at University College London who is working with the Vesuvius Challenge, tells CNN<\/a>\u2019s Catherine Nicholls.<\/p>\n

When it launched in 2023, the Vesuvius Challenge offered more than $1 million<\/a> in prize money to citizen scientists around the world who could use A.I. to help decipher scans of the Herculaneum scrolls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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