Contest launched to decipher Herculaneum scrolls using 3D X-ray software

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79 carbonised hundreds of ancient scrolls in the library of an enormous luxury villa.

Scientists led by Prof Brent Seales, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky, were able to read the ink on surface and hidden layers of scrolls by training a machine-learning algorithm to spot subtle differences in the papyrus structure captured by the X-ray images.

Seales hopes to find evidence of early Christian philosophy.