College Student Uses AI to Read Scrolls That Were Illegible for 2,000 Years

While the uses for AI are seemingly endless, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln student has found a new way to utilize the technological tool. Luke Farritor recently used AI to help him read scrolls that have been indecipherable for 2,000 years. His discovery has astounded researchers who have long searched for a way to decipher the writing on the ancient scroll.

The student was part of a worldwide competition to translate ancient Roman scrolls that were dated back to A.D. 79. The scrolls were significantly damaged by a volcanic eruption that occurred thousands of years ago, and researchers have been stumped on how to decode the impaired artifact ever since. Fortunately, the 21-year-old scholar had a plan. 

The student received a text message containing a photo of one of the scrolls one evening while he was at a party. He took a moment to look over the image before uploading it to his AI program. In typical 21-year-old fashion, Farritor returned to the party and didn’t think much of the Roman scrolls. Later that night, he checked his phone on his way back to his dorm room.

After 2,000 years of the scrolls being illegible, Farritor couldn’t believe his good fortune. “I was completely amazed,” he said. “I freaked out a little bit, jumping up and down, yelling, screaming.” With the help of Farritor’s AI program, experts known as papyrologists were able to translate the Greek letters into a word. “Porphyras” was written on one of the scrolls, which means “purple” in Greek. 

Farritor’s ingenuity paid off and he was awarded $40,000 for his contribution. He has also been credited as being the first person in 2,000 years to accurately decode a portion of the scrolls. That accolade will surely bode well on his post-grad resume.

He said that the scrolls are “something that people said you would never be able to read because it’s too hard to extract the text,” before adding, “And yet today we’re talking about exactly that.” The significance of Farritor’s discovery is astronomical. “Some 95 percent of the material from the classical period is lost, so we just don’t have anything,” said Seales while he announced the content. “And yet we know it was one of the most important philosophical periods of humanity. It’s an era shrouded in mystery for which we’ve lost most of the material.”

Inside the library were ancient Herculaneum scrolls. The library was discovered in the 1750s and more than 600 of the charred scrolls were retrieved from the site. Due to the condition of the scrolls, historians were convinced that unraveling them would cause them to fall apart. 

Black with ash and char, the scrolls are reminiscent of burnt logs. Historians have hypothesized that the scrolls could have belonged to Julius Caesar’s father-in-law, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus. Regardless of their condition, the ancient scrolls are a masterful piece of history. 

The program would scan the documents in hopes of offering clues to what was written inside the ancient relics. However, the technology was not savvy enough to produce the outcome that Seales had hoped. 

He attempted to scan one with his program, but the ink on the Herculaneum scrolls was made of charcoal and water, making it impossible for the device to read on the papyrus. In 2016, Seales began building a program that could identify any kind of ink on ancient documents. 

Though his efforts were valiant, he still needed input from others who were equally as eager to decode the ancient scrolls. Seales created the Vesuvius Challenge in March 2023 with the promise of $1 million to anyone who was able to decode portions of the scrolls.

Farritor would become one of the 1,500 people to enter the competition in hopes of making a historical advancement and possibly earning some prize money along the way. Another participant was a man from California named Casey Handmer, who eventually teamed up with Farritor to put their knowledge to good use. Together, they began to notice parts of the letters appearing on the AI program. 

Farritor is continuing his quest to study more scrolls, but in the meantime, he has big plans for how he’ll spend his $40,000 reward, “I’m going to buy more computers,” he said before adding, “and win the grand prize.”