The race to read the lost words of Ancient Rome has entered a new era of speed and precision as researchers leverage powerful scientific tools to decipher carbonized papyrus scrolls buried for nearly two millennia. Recent advancements, highlighted by an article in The Economist (economist.com), reveal that the laborious process of recovering text from the “Herculaneum scrolls”—once a slow crawl—has shifted into a faster, more promising phase, thanks to cutting-edge particle accelerator technology.
The significance of this breakthrough stretches beyond classical studies; for scholars, historians, and the public in Thailand and around the world, it promises a direct window into Roman thoughts, politics, science, and culture at the close of antiquity. The scrolls, found in Herculaneum—a Roman town entombed by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD—have long represented a lost library, their contents rendered unreadable by fire, ash, and time. In recent years, efforts to decode them have been slow going, stalling after only modest progress since 2023. Now, the combination of enhanced data capture and a more powerful particle accelerator is creating fresh momentum.
The core of the process involves using advanced imaging techniques, including X-ray phase-contrast tomography. With this, researchers can peer inside the rolled-up and fragile papyri without unrolling them, effectively “reading” the ink from within the charred layers. Early phases of the research saw scientists—sometimes aided by artificial intelligence—painstakingly reconstruct a few lines of text at a time. Progress was incremental because of the limitations of the imaging equipment and the immense complexity of digitally untangling the scrolls’ layers.
According to a leading expert from the Herculaneum research consortium, “Using high-energy particle accelerators has allowed us to generate much finer, more detailed scans. Combined with the AI-powered interpretation tools developed in collaboration with computer science teams, we’re now able to reconstruct large portions of text that were previously indecipherable.” By producing sharper images and collecting more data per session, the current effort is expected to accelerate recoveries and, eventually, open up entire new volumes of lost literary works.
For Thailand’s academic, cultural, and education sectors, this surge in classical scholarship offers several important lessons and opportunities. Thai classics departments, historical linguists, and archaeology students now have the chance to witness firsthand how the intersection of science and the humanities can reveal lost knowledge. Universities such as Chulalongkorn and Silpakorn, which maintain departments in world history and archaeology, could benefit from adapting similar high-tech approaches to study Southeast Asia’s own ancient manuscripts and inscriptional heritage—much of which faces similar preservation and legibility challenges, whether from age, weather, or disaster.
This intersection of deep history and frontier science also resonates with Thailand’s growing efforts to digitize and preserve national cultural treasures. The use of non-destructive scanning, digital restoration, and AI can inform projects underway to protect and interpret palm-leaf manuscripts, stone inscriptions, and temple murals. According to a specialist from the Fine Arts Department, “We are following with great interest how these international collaborations bring together physics, artificial intelligence, and ancient languages. Such innovations could form the basis for new research grants and joint workshops in Thailand.”
The revived study of Herculaneum’s scrolls emerges in the context of a long fascination with classical knowledge—an interest that once shaped Thai education in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Western classics became part of higher-education curricula. More recently, digital advancements are transforming how rare textual materials are preserved and accessed both in Europe and in Southeast Asia. In the public imagination, the idea of “reading what was once unreadable” conjures parallels to efforts in Thailand to uncover the stories embedded in ancient Ayutthaya records or the fading scripts of northern temples.
As the technology matures, experts predict that the next few years could see an explosion of newly deciphered Roman texts, shedding light not just on literature and philosophy but also on daily life, science, and political events around 79 AD. For Thai researchers, this holds out the potential of further global partnerships, such as participation in crowdsourcing and machine learning projects, and even a reimagining of how Thai cultural heritage is read and studied.
For Thai readers and educators, the key takeaway is to watch—and learn from—how science unlocks history. Teachers can introduce the story of the Herculaneum scrolls as a living example of problem-solving and innovation, while policymakers might investigate investments in research infrastructure that would allow the country’s own libraries, museums, and archives to become hubs of discovery.
Thais passionate about the past can also get involved: open-source projects and digital archives sometimes welcome volunteers to help “train” algorithms or transcribe digital images of ancient texts. For students, the case study of Roman scrolls underlines the value of interdisciplinary studies—where skills in computer science, language, and heritage management cross paths to achieve what once seemed impossible.
As the world’s library of lost knowledge reopens—one high-energy scan at a time—the message for Thailand is clear: the future of the past belongs to those willing to innovate, adapt, and collaborate. By embracing new technologies and international cooperation, Thailand’s own hidden histories may one day re-emerge with similar clarity and speed.
For more in-depth reading on these developments, see the original coverage at The Economist. For supplementary context on the use of imaging in cultural heritage, refer to studies in Nature and advancements described in Science.