How AI Reads Scorched Roman Scrolls
Chapter 1

The origami of life

Chapter 2

Digging up the past

Chapter 3

Materials and the cosmos

Chapter 4

The language of math and logic

Ch 2 · Digging up the past
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007skaty Scientists reconstruct lost Mesopotamian clay tablets.

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007skaty Archaeologists work to decode the ancient Nazca Lines of Peru

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007skaty Reading scorched Roman scrolls

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007skaty Cuneiform AI Translation

Wedges on clay, A.I. reads the signs, translating the past today.

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Reading scorched Roman scrolls

007skaty The Vesuvius Challenge combined high resolution CT scans with AI pattern recognition to reveal invisible ink and read the word purple.

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Quiz

Which ancient Roman city, buried alongside Pompeii, preserved the charred scrolls being read by AI?

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Quiz

What was the first Greek word successfully deciphered by AI from the carbonized Vesuvius scrolls?

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What we assume is permanently lost is often just waiting for a new way of seeing.

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Spotting ruins from the sky

007skaty Airborne lasers and smart algorithms map ancient ruins hidden beneath dense tropical forests.

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Quiz

In which country did AI analyze LiDAR data to discover over 61,000 hidden Mayan structures?

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Quiz

What technology does AI analyze to 'see' through dense jungle canopies and find archaeological ruins?

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Fun Fact

Ancient scroll reading: The charred Herculaneum scrolls are so fragile that touching them can turn them to dust, making AI the only way to read them.

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Quiz

In which country's desert did AI help researchers discover new giant geoglyphs?

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Quiz

Which university led the research team that paired with IBM's AI to find new Nazca geoglyphs?

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Glossary
lidar (noun)
A remote sensing technology that uses pulsed laser light to measure distances and map surfaces. In 2018, researchers used laser scans to reveal sixty thousand hidden Maya structures buried under Guatemalan jungles.

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Quiz

What ancient Mesopotamian language was the AI translation model trained on in 2023?

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Quiz

Which ancient writing system, written on clay tablets, is AI now translating into English?

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Gossip

Which ancient mystery would you explore first?

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