June 25, 2026
Vesuvius Tea Finally Spilled
A Herculaneum scroll has been read for the first time
Buried for 2,000 years, this scroll finally spilled its secrets — and the comments went wild
TLDR: A sealed scroll from the Roman town buried by Vesuvius has been read all the way through for the first time without physically opening it, revealing ancient philosophy hidden for nearly 2,000 years. Commenters were split between awe, nitpicking the headline, and cracking jokes about lottery tickets and lost Greek treasures.
The internet absolutely lost it over news that a scroll buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD has now been read from start to finish without being physically opened. The team behind the Vesuvius Challenge used X-ray scans and machine learning to reveal text hidden inside a carbonized roll known as PHerc. 1667, uncovering a damaged but readable ancient work on Stoic ethics. In plain English: a book turned to charcoal nearly 2,000 years ago has finally started talking again.
But of course, the real action was in the comments. One team member casually dropped in with a very Hacker News-style flex — yes, they actually helped do the unwrapping and ink detection — instantly giving the thread VIP energy. Then came the gentle correction squad: one commenter pushed back on the headline hype, reminding everyone that Herculaneum scrolls have been studied since the 1700s, so this isn’t the first time any scroll from the site has been read, just the first sealed one read fully this way. Classic internet move: history miracle announced, pedants assemble.
The mood overall? Total nerd euphoria. People were dreaming about lost Greek masterpieces, calling this one of the most exciting uses of AI around, and basically thirsting for “new” words from the ancient world. And because no comment section can resist a joke, one person immediately wondered whether scratch-off lottery tickets are doomed now that hidden writing can be revealed without peeling things open. Ancient philosophy, modern chaos, perfect combo.
Key Points
- •The article says PHerc. 1667 has been virtually unwrapped and read continuously from beginning to end without physically opening the scroll.
- •Researchers used high-resolution X-ray scanning, digital reconstruction, flattening, and machine learning to recover text from the carbonized papyrus.
- •The recovered text from PHerc. 1667 is described as a fragmentary Stoic ethical treatise, with about twenty-two columns transcribed and reviewed by papyrologists.
- •In PHerc. Paris 4, higher-resolution imaging reportedly made ink directly visible in 3D X-ray data, confirming a prior reading from the 2023 Grand Prize.
- •In PHerc. 139, the article says researchers recovered a title and author attribution identifying the text as Philodemus, On Gods, Book 8.