r/woahdude • u/animal_spirits_ • 6d ago

video Ultra High Res Scan of Ancient Fragile Scroll. Researchers have been able to read text from this scan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY5BIxkf5m0
165 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

30 comments sorted by

•

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75

u/hanr86 6d ago

Wait, theyre able to read texts from the different thickness of the cross sections? If so, that's fucking bonkers.

65

u/itsjash 6d ago

Once the scan is complete computer software can make a 3D render, then they can virtually unravel the scroll. Health care does this but with body parts.

4

u/alienplantlife1 5d ago

And here I am doing it manually. I do have a great meat slicer though!

20

u/mtbdork 6d ago

If you imagine a piece of paper laid on its side with writing on it, if you took “slices” of that paper from the side, you’d end up with little dots and occasional lines and whatnot.

With enough of these slices, you’d have a big series of lines and dots that you can now “transpose” into letters by stacking them up.

Super cool stuff!

3

u/Gubru 5d ago

I don't think thickness is the important factor, I think it's the chemicals in the ink being visible in some subtle way in the raw data from the scan.

5

u/skinny_whale 6d ago

Yep, or I don't know how it works. But they have read some old scrolls by scanning without unrolling them. Pretty crazy.

69

u/animal_spirits_ 6d ago

This is a scan of one of the Herculaneum scrolls. They have been charred from the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79. Computer scientists have been able to use machine learning to read the text from these unopenable scrolls by scanning hi res slices of the burnt remains. Read more here: https://scrollprize.org/data_scrolls#scroll-1-pherc-paris-4

41

u/GrinningPariah 6d ago

It's worth clicking the link to see just how fucked up this scroll was.

That said, I really wish there was somewhere to see the reconstructed scroll flattened out. I couldn't find that anywhere on that page, just the scan slices.

15

u/omovic 6d ago

They are not finished. This is still ongoing research, hence there ios prize money available if you solve specific challenges.

Do you want to no more?

3

u/un-sub 6d ago

Oh wow I was not expecting a piece of charcoal! That's amazing they could even get any text from it!

2

u/ccrepitation 6d ago

Damn I would have said it was petrified dookie.

2

u/jtbxiv 6d ago

This scroll is beyond fragile. I feel like it would turn to dust if I coughed into my arm while on the other side of the room. What a treasure.

7

u/DergerDergs 6d ago

Here's the one of the "virtual unwrappings" with human input https://scrollprize.org/img/virtual-unwrapping/fasp-surface-tracer.jpg

18

u/Ccjfb 6d ago

So what do they say?

84

u/G-I-T-M-E 6d ago

Your copper sucks.

7

u/BenOctane 6d ago

Damn a rioulu reference here is crazy

44

u/shpongleyes 6d ago

I know the Riolu reference, but they're more likely referring to the complaint tablet to Ea-nāṣir, which is the oldest known recorded customer complaint. It's basically a dude telling a merchant his copper sucks.

-2

u/BenOctane 6d ago

Yeah I know I was only kidding mate

6

u/Xaxyx 6d ago

We’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s warranty…

3

u/animal_spirits_ 6d ago

In the deciphered text, Philodemus writes on “pleasure,” and whether the abundance of goods available can affect the amount of pleasure they give. “As too in the case of food, we do not right away believe things that are scarce to be absolutely more pleasant than those which are abundant,” the first sentence reads.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/07/world/herculaneum-scroll-passages-decoded-philodemus-vesuvius-scn/index.html

3

u/Ccjfb 6d ago

So cool! Sounds like a good philosophy!

12

u/eperker 6d ago

Hard to know. They were written in tree ringlish.

1

u/Less-Safety-3011 5d ago

"We've been trying to reach you concerning your car's extended warranty"

0

u/gregmichael 6d ago

"Epstein didn't hang himself"

20

u/leyline 6d ago

Drink more ovaltine!

3

u/GreenFeen 6d ago

Wasn’t it ‘Big Balls’ from DOGE that figured out the process to read them?