Researchers with the Vesuvius Challenge have completed a virtual unwrapping and continuous reading of a rolled Herculaneum papyrus, recovering the surviving text without physically opening the fragile artifact. PHerc. 1667, known within the project as Scroll 4, was carbonized during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
The achievement covers the scroll’s preserved inner core rather than the entire object as it existed in antiquity. Attempts to open it physically in the nineteenth century, 1969 and the 1980s destroyed outer layers, leaving a compact section about eight centimeters high from an estimated original height of 19 to 24 centimeters. From that remainder, the team reconstructed and read the lower portions of about 22 columns.
The process began with high-resolution phase-contrast X-ray microtomography at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility’s BM18 beamline in Grenoble. Researchers mapped the tightly wound sheet inside the volume, digitally flattened the reconstructed surface and applied machine-learning systems to reveal ink that is difficult to distinguish from the carbonized papyrus. Papyrologists then examined and transcribed the readings.
The recovered work is an ethical and philosophical treatise. Its discussion of human nature, impulse and moral progress, together with a reference to Aristocreon, nephew and follower of the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus, points toward a Stoic setting and a date in the second century BC. Damage leaves gaps and fragmentary passages, so the result is a continuous reading of what survives, not a pristine complete text.
The announcement also described progress on two other scrolls. In PHerc. Paris 4, higher-resolution imaging made ink visible directly within three-dimensional X-ray data. When projected onto the reconstructed surface, that text matched the winning 2023 reading, providing an independent check with improved imaging. In PHerc. 139, the team recovered a title and attribution identifying *On Gods, Book 8* by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus.
The National Library of Naples “Vittorio Emanuele III,” custodian of the papyri, collaborated on the work. The Vesuvius Challenge grew from imaging and software research led by Brent Seales at EduceLab and was co-founded with Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross as a public, donation-funded competition. Several current researchers first participated as contestants.
The project released tomographic data, reconstructed surfaces and transcriptions under a Creative Commons licence, with code on GitHub. That openness allows specialists to test individual readings and adapt the workflow. Hundreds of sealed rolls remain, making reproducibility and scaling as important as the first end-to-end result. Independent scholarly review remains essential because machine-learning enhancement does not by itself determine a letter or interpretation. The released scans and surfaces let papyrologists compare disputed traces, propose alternatives and separate confidence in the imaging process from confidence in particular reconstructed passages.
