New, pulsed thermography, imaging techniques are deciphering scrolls last read 2,000 years ago.

When Vesuvius erupted in 79AD, burying Pompeii and drowning Herculaneum in volcanic mud, the surge of hot gas carbonised an entire library in a villa now known as the Villa dei Papiri, thought to be owned by Julius Caesar’s father-in-law Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus. The papyrus scrolls were turned to fragile logs of charcoal, too blackened and fragile to interpret.

Over the last couple of years, thanks to advanced, non-intrusive imaging techniques, AI and an open-source Vesuvius Challenge (which awarded $700,000, the largest prize in archaeology to three computer students), the scrolls are being read.

This week, researchers from the University of Pisa revealed previously unknown details about Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, along with works on the Epicurean school and biographies of Greek physicians. Zeno, it appears, was frail and had a tendency to avoid banquets, but then he was also mocked for his poor Greek (he was Phoenician) and accused of “annoying young men with his chatter and reproaches”. His famous, but long lost, work The Republic is reported in the newly deciphered History of the Stoic School as being morally questionable and “embarrassing” because his vision of utopia rejected private marriage and family life, and advocated equality between men and women and tolerance of same-sex relationships.

The University of Pisa has a detailed post, here.

The Times has been running stories following the project here, here and here.