A scroll carbonized by Vesuvius in 79 AD was read without unrolling it (scrollprize.org)
The Vesuvius Challenge team took a scroll that turns to powder if you touch it, scanned it at a synchrotron, digitally unwound 1.4 metres of papyrus, and trained ML to spot ink on carbonized fibre. The result: a 2nd-century-BC Stoic treatise on human nature, readable for the first time.
One catch a contributor pulled from the preprint: columns 1 to 4 are simply gone. "Entire" is generous.
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