AI will let us read ‘lost’ ancient works in the library at Herculaneum for the first time

By Michael McOsker, Research Fellow in Papyrology, UCL

On 19 October 1752, a discovery was made 20 metres underneath the town of Resina, near Naples in Italy. Peasants digging wells in the area around Mount Vesuvius had struck marble statuary and mosaic pavements – and they also found lumps of carbon.

Initially, they were tossed aside – the lumps weren’t considered valuable or pretty, so were of no interest. But thankfully, someone noticed they were all about the same size and shape, and investigated further. It was soon discovered the carbonised lumps they thought were rolled-up hunting or fishing nets, or bolts of cloth, in fact contained…

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