A Herculaneum scroll has been read for the first time
Summary
PHerc. 1667, sealed since 79 AD, has been digitally unwrapped and read end-to-end. The article describes how high-resolution X-ray tomography and machine learning revealed ink without touching the papyrus, and notes that data and code are openly released for global collaboration. It highlights the potential to scale this approach to hundreds of scrolls in the ancient library.