{"id":948,"date":"2023-10-13T09:16:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-13T09:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/herculaneum.classics.ox.ac.uk\/?p=948"},"modified":"2025-04-12T16:00:41","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T16:00:41","slug":"decisive-breakthrough-in-reading-herculaneum-papyri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/2023\/10\/13\/decisive-breakthrough-in-reading-herculaneum-papyri\/","title":{"rendered":"Decisive breakthrough in reading Herculaneum papyri"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Within days of the first detection of a dozen clear letters in the interior of a scroll, Youssef Nader, entrant in the <a href=\"http:\/\/scrollprize.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Vesuvius Challenge<\/a>, has produced an even more astounding result. Numerous words and successive columns prove that we will be able to read the scrolls using machine learning, A dramatic press conference at the University of Kentucky made the announcement. Papyrologists are hard at work producing a full transcript but, among other details, look at the second column, fourth line, first word: \u039c\u039f\u03a5\u03a3\u0399\u039a\u0397\u039d, music, giving a hint about the possible content.\u00a0For more details, see <a href=\"https:\/\/scrollprize.org\/firstletters\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=w0EsoAbRk1M\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>\u00a0(programme starts at the 12:15 mark).\u00a0  [13\/10\/2023]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"163\" src=\"https:\/\/www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot_from_2023-10-10_15-20-56-1024x163.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-951\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot_from_2023-10-10_15-20-56-1024x163.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot_from_2023-10-10_15-20-56-300x48.png 300w, https:\/\/www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot_from_2023-10-10_15-20-56-768x122.png 768w, https:\/\/www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot_from_2023-10-10_15-20-56-1536x244.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Screenshot_from_2023-10-10_15-20-56-2048x326.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u200b<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Within days of the first detection of a dozen clear letters in the interior of a scroll, Youssef Nader, entrant in the Vesuvius Challenge, has produced an even more astounding [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=948"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":955,"href":"https:\/\/www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948\/revisions\/955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.herculaneum.ox.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}