AI reads secret message on ancient scroll – it ends with 'casting shadows'

ARTIFICIAL intelligence has been used to decipher a message about a mysterious 2000 years old role.

The charred papyRus has been described as one of the greatest mysteries in archaeology, but student researchers have finally solved the case.

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The Herculaneum scroll in question underwent a carbonization process during the infamous eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

While the scrolls are packed and sealed in their fragile state, if opened they will be destroyed if opened.

This is why the text on many of the scrolls has remained secret for thousands of years.

A competition called the Vesuvius Challenge was organized to see if scientists could come up with a way to decipher the rolled scrolls.

There were three winners who shared a $700,000 prize.

“The results of this assessment were clear and unanimous: the Vesuvius Challenge grand prize of $700,000 will be awarded to a team of three for their outstanding entry.

“Congratulations to Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor and Julian Schilliger!” the Vesuvius Challenge website unveiled this week.

The team trained AI to read rolled scrolls and applied this method to the fragile Herculaneum scroll.

Their entry into the competition was described as the “most readable entry”.

You may wonder what someone wrote on a scroll about 2,000 years ago.

It turns out that the author used it to complain about an unknown person.

The deciphered text “throws shade on nameless ideological opponents—perhaps the Stoics?—who have 'nothing to say about fun, either in general or in particular,'” contest organizer Nat Friedman explained.

'This is the beginning of a revolution in Herculaneum papyrology and in Greek philosophy in general.

“It is the only library that comes to us from ancient Roman times,” Federica Nicolardi of the University of Naples, Federico II, told The Guardian.