Fascinating article in The Economist this week about the effort underway by computer scientists to use machine language models and a particle accelerator (!) to decipher the petrified remains of 500 scrolls from a Roman library buried in the Vesuvius eruption. The impact on classical studies and history would be mind-boggling if it becomes possible to virtually unroll and read these lost scrolls.

The Economist article sits behind a paywall, but this website details the project (and the prize money involved!).

Picture of a charred scroll from Vesuvius