21-Year-Old Student Wins $40,000 by Deciphering Ancient Papyrus Using AI

Luke Farritor, a 21-year-old student at the University of Nebraska, achieved a scientific breakthrough in artificial intelligence by successfully deciphering a word on an ancient papyrus over 2,000 years old. As part of the “Vesuvius Challenge,” Farritor became the first person to decode a word from the ancient papyrus scrolls. This competition encourages the use of cutting-edge technology to study ancient scrolls from the Herculaneum library, which were damaged during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

At a press conference held on Thursday, it was announced that the 21-year-old computer science student won the “First Letters” prize of $40,000 after successfully deciphering and reading more than 10 characters on a 4-square-centimeter section of the scroll.

The winner, a student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, was inspired by the previous work of another participant, Casey Handmer. Farritor developed a machine learning algorithm that ultimately helped him identify a series of letters on the scroll. The deciphered word was “Porphyras,” which translates to “purple.”

Farritor was the first participant to submit the required number of readable letters in the competition. During the press conference, he shared his excitement at the moment he first discovered the letters: “I saw those letters and just lost my mind,” Farritor said.

Farritor’s use of artificial intelligence to read the Herculaneum scrolls is an innovative approach, given their fragility and the risk of damage. Federica Nicolardi, a papyrology expert from the University of Naples, described the scrolls as “very complex” and “heavily damaged.” She expressed hope that with new methods, researchers will be able to read more documents, leading to a “scientific revolution.”

Although Farritor successfully deciphered one of the scrolls, many others remain unstudied. As part of the “Vesuvius Challenge,” scientists are invited to decipher four fragments from two scanned scrolls, with a chance to win the grand prize of $700,000.