How AI is unveiling ancient words buried and charred by Mount Vesuvius’s volcanic eruption

Almost 6,000 miles separate Orem, Utah, from the ancient and uninhabited Roman town of Herculaneum.

But for this week, the two distant locales are “neighbors.”

Orem’s Utah Valley University is hosting “The Buried Library” — a free conference examining the seemingly incongruous confluence of ancient Herculaneum papyri and leading-edge artificial intelligence and technology.

At its core, said event organizer and UVU philosophy professor Michael Shaw, “The Buried Library” celebrates “the possibilities” when tech and the humanities join forces.

The four-day event, which began Tuesday, gathers scholars from several nations who are utilizing AI and advanced imaging to study the ancient Herculaneum scrolls that were buried and carbonized by the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.

Four of the charred Herculaneum scrolls are on public display at the ongoing UVU conference. Such scrolls have essentially been unreadable since their discovery in 1752 — until now.

Early researchers originally tried to open the papyrus scrolls by hand, peeling off layer after layer. But that process proved destructive and largely unsuccessful — and the writing contained in the scrolls long remained a mystery.

“You can open (the papyri) and see fragments of writing — and they discovered that these are scrolls by a philosopher named Philodemus, and some of the papyri scrolls are from a famous philosopher named Epicurus,” said Shaw.

Shaw credits Brigham Young University and BYU classical studies professor Roger Macfarlane for pioneering, in recent decades, methods to digitally image unrolled papyrus layers. Such methods help preserve the scrolls, and draw out the writing.

The trust that BYU and Macfarlane have built with their research colleagues in Italy was also pivotal in the latter agreeing to participate in the ongoing UVU conference, added Shaw.

In recent years, AI and technology advances have allowed researchers to detect and distinguish the ink on the ancient scrolls that have been carbonized for millennia.

In 2023, AI technology identified the first word inside the charred Herculaneum scrolls: “Porphyras” — which is Greek for purple or purple dye.

Now the papyri can be imaged, unrolled and restored digitally — allowing researchers to “get to the very inside” and recover the lost writing.

“And that,” said Shaw, “is what this conference is about.”

A community event — featuring world-class scholars

The international roster of presenters at UVU’s conference hails from a variety of academic disciplines, but Shaw noted each is “world-class” in their respective fields.

Their conference presentation topics range from the “virtues and vices” of AI — to papyrology, volcanology, Epicureanism and scroll conservation.

And while the conference presenters form a select collection of global scholars, “The Buried Library” is very much a campus and community event, said Shaw. It’s sponsored by several UVU colleges, departments and offices — along with BYU’s College of Humanities.

“We want to inspire people to study,” said Shaw.

There’s a need for more scientists in the fields highlighted at the ongoing UVU conference. For example, there’s more digitally scanned papyri than classicists who are properly trained to work with them.

But regardless of one’s academic path, said Shaw, there’s value in learning to properly incorporate emerging technologies into scientific inquiry.

“We want to show people that there’s a lot of potential in these narrow uses of AI,” he said, adding: “We’re trying to encourage people to study at the university — and then inspire them to do this kind of work.”

Tech: Helping antiquity researchers take ‘little steps’

University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli professor Gianluca Del Mastro is a lead papyrologist on the Herculaneum Papyri project — and one of the event’s presenters.

Participating in such a conference in Utah, Del Mastro told the Deseret News, “is a dream for all of us.”

“This is an amazing occasion to be together and for rediscovering our culture, our history and our roots in Greek and Latin literature.”

The Italian scientist added he was equally enthused to discuss “the new perspective in research” afforded by new technologies. Innovations such as AI, said Del Mastro, are helping researchers “take the little steps in the knowledge of ancient antiquity.”

Any who want to attend the “The Buried Library” event can register via the conference homepage — but walk-ins are also welcome, said Shaw.

The conference is held at UVU’s Clarke Building and free parking is available in the Lot L9 lot on the north end of campus.