This is actually really amazing. They scan charred, burnt scrolls that can’t be physically opened without crumbling, and the AI is able to use subtle deformations the ink on the scrolls caused to reconstruct letters.

The scrolls were discovered in the eighteenth century, when workmen came across the remains of a luxury villa that might have belonged to the family of Julius Caesar’s father-in-law. Deciphering the papyri, Sommerschield says, could “revolutionize our knowledge of ancient history and literature”. Most classical texts known today are the result of repeated copying by scribes over centuries. By contrast, the Herculaneum library contains works not known from any other sources, direct from the authors.