The Herculaneum scrolls are among the most iconic and inaccessible of the world’s vast collection of damaged manuscripts. Burned and buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, they offer a unique window to the ancient world. Unfortunately, they are too fragile to unroll.

For more than two decades, Seales and his dedicated team — of staff and student researchers with the Digital Restoration Initiative, part of EduceLab — have doggedly labored to create high-tech, noninvasive tools to rescue hidden texts and restore them to humanity.

In March, as part of a global competition (Vesuvius Challenge), Seales’ team released its software and thousands of 3D X-ray images of two rolled-up scrolls and three papyrus fragments.

The hope is, $1 million in prizes will encourage global researchers and scholars to build upon the AI technology and accelerate the decoding of the only intact library to survive from ancient times.

Now, thanks to modern technology and Seales’ determination, this 20-year quest to read the “unreadable” has been made possible.

* This is a re-broadcast of the livestream from University of Kentucky, Pigman College of Engineering
Find out more @ https://www.engr.uky.edu