Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize awarded: we can read the first scroll!
The 2000-year-old scroll discusses music, food, and how to enjoy life’s pleasures.
February 5th, 2024
We’re announcing the winners of the Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize. We’ll look at how they did it, what the scrolls say, and what comes next.
[…]
Less than a year later, in December 2023, they succeeded. Finally, after 275 years, we can begin to read the scrolls:
![[Image: text_bcb-smaller.jpg]](https://scrollprize.org/img/grandprize/text_bcb-smaller.jpg)
Text from PHerc.Paris. 4 (Institut de France), unseen for 2,000 years. Roughly 95% of the scroll remains to be read.
[…]
What does the scroll say?
To date, our efforts have managed to unroll and read about 5% of the first scroll. Our eminent team of papyrologists has been hard at work and has achieved a preliminary transcription of all the revealed columns. We now know that this scroll is not a duplicate of an existing work; it contains never-before-seen text from antiquity. The papyrology team are preparing to deliver a comprehensive study as soon as they can. You all gave them a lot of work to do! Initial readings already provide glimpses into this philosophical text. From our scholars:
The general subject of the text is pleasure, which, properly understood, is the highest good in Epicurean philosophy. In these two snippets from two consecutive columns of the scroll, the author is concerned with whether and how the availability of goods, such as food, can affect the pleasure which they provide.
Do things that are available in lesser quantities afford more pleasure than those available in abundance? Our author thinks not: “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.” However, is it easier for us naturally to do without things that are plentiful? “Such questions will be considered frequently.”
Since this is the end of a scroll, this phrasing may suggest that more is coming in subsequent books of the same work. At the beginning of the first text, a certain Xenophantos is mentioned, perhaps the same man — presumably a musician — also mentioned by Philodemus in his work On Music.
Philodemus, of the Epicurean school, is thought to have been the philosopher-in-residence of the villa, working in the small library in which the scrolls were found.
There’s a lot more, so if you’re interested, see:
https://scrollprize.org/grandprize
The 2000-year-old scroll discusses music, food, and how to enjoy life’s pleasures.
February 5th, 2024
We’re announcing the winners of the Vesuvius Challenge 2023 Grand Prize. We’ll look at how they did it, what the scrolls say, and what comes next.
[…]
Less than a year later, in December 2023, they succeeded. Finally, after 275 years, we can begin to read the scrolls:
Text from PHerc.Paris. 4 (Institut de France), unseen for 2,000 years. Roughly 95% of the scroll remains to be read.
[…]
What does the scroll say?
To date, our efforts have managed to unroll and read about 5% of the first scroll. Our eminent team of papyrologists has been hard at work and has achieved a preliminary transcription of all the revealed columns. We now know that this scroll is not a duplicate of an existing work; it contains never-before-seen text from antiquity. The papyrology team are preparing to deliver a comprehensive study as soon as they can. You all gave them a lot of work to do! Initial readings already provide glimpses into this philosophical text. From our scholars:
The general subject of the text is pleasure, which, properly understood, is the highest good in Epicurean philosophy. In these two snippets from two consecutive columns of the scroll, the author is concerned with whether and how the availability of goods, such as food, can affect the pleasure which they provide.
Do things that are available in lesser quantities afford more pleasure than those available in abundance? Our author thinks not: “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.” However, is it easier for us naturally to do without things that are plentiful? “Such questions will be considered frequently.”
Since this is the end of a scroll, this phrasing may suggest that more is coming in subsequent books of the same work. At the beginning of the first text, a certain Xenophantos is mentioned, perhaps the same man — presumably a musician — also mentioned by Philodemus in his work On Music.
Philodemus, of the Epicurean school, is thought to have been the philosopher-in-residence of the villa, working in the small library in which the scrolls were found.
There’s a lot more, so if you’re interested, see:
https://scrollprize.org/grandprize
Paper Trail: 42% English, 31.5% Scottish, 12.5% Irish, 6.25% German, 6.25% Sicilian & 1.5% French.
LDNA©: Britain & Ireland: 89.3% (51.5% English, 37.8% Scottish & Irish), N.W. Germanic: 7.8%, Europe South: 2.9% (Southern Italy & Sicily)
BigY 700: I1-Z141 >F2642 >Y3649 >Y7198 (c.345 AD) >Y168300 (c.392 AD) >A13248 (c.871 AD) >A13252 (c.1051 AD) >FT81015 (c.1281 AD) >A13243 (c.1620 AD) >FT80854 (c.1700 AD) >FT80630 (1893 AD).
LDNA©: Britain & Ireland: 89.3% (51.5% English, 37.8% Scottish & Irish), N.W. Germanic: 7.8%, Europe South: 2.9% (Southern Italy & Sicily)
BigY 700: I1-Z141 >F2642 >Y3649 >Y7198 (c.345 AD) >Y168300 (c.392 AD) >A13248 (c.871 AD) >A13252 (c.1051 AD) >FT81015 (c.1281 AD) >A13243 (c.1620 AD) >FT80854 (c.1700 AD) >FT80630 (1893 AD).