Three weeks to go in Vesuvius Challenge 2024!

And: we're hiring!

Tracing papyrus fibers inside a scroll (image by Sean Johnson).

Hello, scrollers!

We’re in the final stretch of the 2024 competition. Here’s a quick note about the timeline.

Prize deadlines

The deadline for all open prizes is 11:59 pm Pacific, December 31. Don’t miss it!

There are more than $500,000 in prizes currently waiting to be claimed:

• $200,000 - 2024 Grand Prize - Read 90% of 4 scrolls from Scrolls 1-5

• $100,000 - First Automated Segmentation Prize - Reproduce the 2023 Grand Prize result but faster

• 4 x $60,000 - First Letters and First Title Prizes - Find the title of Scroll 1, or first letters in Scrolls 2, 3, or 4

• $350,000 - Monthly Progress Prizes - Open ended prizes from $1,000-20,000

Even if you aren’t sure you meet the bar yet, we may reward partial work that helps achieve the mission of reading the scrolls. Multiple submissions are also permitted if you improve something after an existing submission. When in doubt, submit!

What’s next?

We are committed to reading the full contents of the Herculaneum library. There is much more work to do!

In the new year, we’ll evaluate prize submissions and will work hard to level up the community so that we have a better chance of reading multiple complete scrolls.

That is, assuming this milestone doesn’t fall in the next three weeks!

In either case, rest assured the project will continue. You’ll hear from us early in the year about the next phases.

Join the Vesuvius Challenge team

We are hiring for our Segmentation Team! In this role you will get up close and personal with ancient scrolls, and it is guaranteed you will look at written surfaces no human has seen in 2,000 years. More information is available at our website.