The Herculaneum scrolls are speaking again
Breaking news from Naples reveals two new ancient books not seen in 2,000 years
The Bodleian Libraries and the Vesuvius Challenge have today announced an incredible breakthrough in the world of archaeology.
Using virtual unwrapping, high-resolution scanning, AI and papyrological interpretation, researchers have recovered substantial readable text from unopened carbonised scrolls found in Herculaneum.
Buried and carbonised by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, these fragile papyrus rolls are among the most extraordinary survivals from the ancient world. They come from the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, the only substantial library to survive from classical antiquity. Until today, the scrolls have been almost impossible to decipher due to their carbonisation. Attempts have been made in the past to unravel the scrolls by hand but, due to resembling charcoal, this has more often than not led to the destruction of the scrolls.
Now, researchers have announced a number of historic breakthroughs, all of which happened much sooner than the archaeology, or technology, worlds anticipated.
The announcement includes the full virtual unwrapping of the surviving portion of PHerc. 1667, revealing nearly 1.5 metres of text across around 20 columns, and the recovery of more than 70 columns from PHerc. 172, one of the Herculaneum scrolls housed at Oxford’s Bodleian Library.
The new ancient works by the Epicurean philosopher, Philodemus, are On Gods, Book 8 and On Vices, Book 1. The texts cover ethics, arts and human behavior, and include clear discussions of Stoic concepts.
This is a moment of cultural revolution, a turning point in humanity’s relationship with its ancient past and the voices that shaped it. For centuries, scholars have known that hundreds of Herculaneum scrolls still survive, but the problem has always been how to read them without destroying them. Earlier attempts to physically open the scrolls often damaged them, and in some cases left only fragments, detached pieces, or badly distorted layers of papyrus. The new breakthrough changes the terms of the problem. Instead of forcing the scrolls open, researchers can now scan their internal structure, digitally map the layers, detect traces of ink, and virtually lay the text out for papyrologists to read.
“This is a moment of cultural revolution, a turning point in humanity’s relationship with its ancient past and the voices that shaped it.”
One of the most exciting discoveries comes from PHerc. 1667. This scroll is especially important because its handwriting and internal references suggest that it may date to the second century BC, or possibly even the late third century BC, making it one of the oldest scrolls in the Herculaneum collection. Unlike many of the known Herculaneum papyri, which are dominated by works of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus, this text may not be Epicurean at all. Early readings suggest a philosophical treatise concerned with ethics, art and human behaviour, perhaps even reflecting Stoic thought.
The recovered Greek includes terms such as ὁρμή, hormē, meaning impulse, the drive that moves humans and animals to act, and φρόνησις, phronēsis, practical wisdom. One passage warns against an excess of impulse when reason fails to govern behaviour, while another suggests that knowledge depends on remaining aligned with our own nature, understood in philosophical terms as human rationality.
While this may sound abstract to a non-specialist, to scholars these are far more than scattered words or isolated letters. For the first time, researchers can follow arguments across multiple columns of text, trace ideas as they develop, reconstruct the shape of lost works, and understand these scrolls not merely as archaeological objects, but as books.
Another major discovery comes from PHerc. 139, where papyrologists have identified the title Philodemus, On Gods, Book 8. This is hugely significant because it shows, for the first time, that Philodemus’ On Gods extended to at least eight books. Until now, only Book 1 was known. The newly recovered text includes references to providence, god, invisible entities, nature, living beings and future things, opening a new window onto Epicurean theology and ancient debates about the structure of the universe.
PHerc. 172 is another headline discovery. Housed at the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford, it has now yielded more than 70 columns of text and has been identified as Philodemus’ On Vices, Book 1. Earlier announcements had already shown that researchers could reveal parts of its interior (one of the first translated words was διατροπή, meaning “disgust”, which appeared twice within a few columns), but this new stage takes the work much further, recovering enough material to support new critical scholarly editions.
The wider implications are enormous. The Herculaneum scrolls are not just texts from Pompeii’s little brother, but are instead the remains of a real ancient library, buried by one of the most famous disasters in history. If this method can be repeated at scale, it could eventually unlock secrets held inside the other 1,800 scrolls. That means works by authors we already know, lost books by authors we only partly understand, and perhaps even completely unknown voices from the ancient world.
“If this method can be repeated at scale, it could eventually unlock more than 600 still unopened scrolls. That means works by authors we already know, lost books by authors we only partly understand, and perhaps even completely unknown voices from the ancient world.”
The Vesuvius Challenge was launched in 2023 by Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross and Brent Seales, building on decades of research by Seales and his team at the University of Kentucky. The challenge turned a long standing scholarly problem into a global collaboration, drawing in computer scientists, engineers, papyrologists and citizen researchers. High resolution micro CT scanning, including work at Diamond Light Source in the UK and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in France, created the vast datasets needed to map the scrolls internally. Machine learning then helped detect the almost invisible carbon ink on carbonised papyrus.
But it is important to be clear about what AI is, and is not, doing here. AI is not simply translating the scrolls. Instead, it is helping researchers detect and visualise ink that the human eye cannot see. The reading, interpretation, editing and understanding of these texts still depends on papyrologists, classicists and historians. In other words, the technology is opening the door, but human scholarship is making it meaningful.
“The reading, interpretation, editing and understanding of these texts still depends on papyrologists, classicists and historians.”
That is why this announcement is so incredibly important, not only for archaeology and technology, but for humankind. For years, the dream was simply to prove that the scrolls could be read at all. Now, that dream has been elevated beyond an archaeologist’s wildest dreams. The question is no longer only whether these texts can be recovered, but what they will tell us.
The lost library of Herculaneum is beginning to speak again. And I will be hear to update you every step of the way!
Thanks go to La Biblioteca Eterna I Papiri di Ercolano nei secoli e nel futuro digitale for the press release ahead of the announcement.
You may join the livestream of the conference announcement on Thursday, June 25, 2026
Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli (Naples, Italy)
10:30 a.m. CEST / 4:30 a.m. ET
Livestream:
This is beyond extraordinary (and one of the few uses of AI I can get behind). You historians must be fizzing with joy at these new finds.
The first word recovered from a scroll buried for two thousand years was disgust. Not wisdom, not beauty, not god. Disgust. Which tells you that Philodemus, writing about human vices, was already working on exactly the same problems we are still trying to solve today. Two millennia underground, and the conversation picks up where it left off. Awesome 😅