$50K First Letters Prize awarded for PHerc. 343
Summary
The Vesuvius Challenge awarded a $50K First Letters Prize to Erwin Nieuwlaar for reading a legible first-letter sequence from PHerc. 343. The article describes his ink-detection pipeline, surface-tracing method, and a four-model average that leverages open-source tools, with results and instructions shared publicly to allow replication. It also notes additional submissions and ongoing exploration of ancient texts within the project’s open-science framework.