$60,000 First Title Prize Awarded!
Title of a still-rolled Herculaneum scroll has been read for first time ever
PHerc. 172 continues to deliver! We are thrilled to share that the written title of this scroll has been recovered from deep inside its carbonized folds of papyrus. This is the first time the title of a still-rolled Herculaneum scroll has ever been recovered noninvasively:
The finding was independently discovered by two parties. Sean Johnson of the Vesuvius Challenge research team produced a segmentation and image revealing the title written on the papyrus surface. Around the same time, contestant team Marcel Roth and Micha Nowak produced the same finding, also improving ink detection methods to further refine the text. For this discovery, Marcel and Micha are winning the first First Title Prize of $60,000!
The images were independently reviewed by our papyrological team led by Federica Nicolardi, which unanimously read the author’s name as Philodemus and the title of the work as On Vices. The book number is likely written as Book 1, though this is less certain (for now).
On Vices is written, but from other works we know the full version of the title to be “Περὶ κακιῶν καὶ τῶν ἀντικειμένων ἀρετῶν καὶ τῶν ἐν οἷϲ εἰϲι καὶ περὶ ἅ”, or in English On Vices and Their Opposite Virtues and In Whom They Are and About What.
From initial clues, we had good reason to suspect the author of this particular scroll was again Herculaneum’s favorite philosopher, but it’s great to have it confirmed so quickly.
Winning team
Marcel and Micha have been participating in Vesuvius Challenge for some time now, receiving a number of progress prizes since they got involved.
We are grateful to Marcel and Micha for their continued contributions and are elated to award them the inaugural First Title Prize for this finding! Their code is viewable on GitHub.
Back in 2023, we jumped into the Vesuvius Grand Prize Challenge less than two months before it concluded, winning a progress prize but missing the podium, which was both motivating and frustrating. Driven by our unresolved ambition, we returned more experienced this year, turning our previous work into a winning approach.
Marcel & Micha
As the first, this remains the only title from our scrolls that has been recovered. We have released datasets for multiple other scrolls, each of which also has a $60,000 First Title Prize. You could claim these prizes - join us!
PHerc. 172’s lessons
Titles are common in Herculaneum scrolls, but this title is unusual. In all of the titles we have thus far, this is the first that contains the book number on the same line as the title. Typically, the author’s name, the title, and the number are each center justified on new lines, like this:
What this means isn’t quite clear. It could be that this is a draft copy of On Vices, but this is less likely given the framing of the title by the decorative dashes above and below.
The book number itself raises other questions. According to Michael McOsker — University College London/Oxford University and a member of our papyrological team — it’s generally been understood that the first book of On Vices was the book On Flattery (known from physically unrolled papyri). He notes that the text of PHerc. 172 does not seem to correspond with that of On Flattery, suggesting that if this is indeed book one, we will improve our general understanding of the work. In addition, the title, which appears complete, does not include a specific book title (in addition to the work title and book number).
The work On Vices has received some special attention not only because of its philosophical content, but also because in one of its books, Philodemus addresses some of his friends, namely Quintilius Varus, Varius Rufus, Plotius Tucca, and Vergil!
Ink detection performed on our latest autosegmentation shows a significant amount of text, and we expect this improvement to continue. Sheet switches (a segmentation falsely jumping from one sheet to an adjacent one) are still present, but are improving versus previous iterations as well. As methods continue to develop, we will discover additional insights into On Vices.
As always, we’re thankful to the Vesuvius Challenge community for pushing forward this exciting research, as well as to our partners at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford University, the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, the University of Naples Federico II, and EduceLab at the University of Kentucky for enabling and supporting the large effort required to implement this project.
Although much of our latest announcements have concerned text in PHerc. 172 — due to its unusually discoverable ink — prizes remain for our other scanned scrolls, including First Title prizes like the one awarded here! In addition, we have prizes for the following achievements:
$60,000 - First letters in Scrolls 2, 3, or 4
$60,000 - First Title in Scrolls 1, 2, 3, or 4
$200,000 - Read Entire Scroll Prize — to the first person to unroll and read an entire Herculaneum scroll
Join us at scrollprize.org!
Congratulations!!!!
Do you think that by detecting enough of the ink to read the title, it will lead to a way to detect more of the ink and see the title more clearly?