Three scientists were awarded $700,000 on February 5th for using AI to decipher the writing on a charred 2,000-year-old papyrus scroll excavated from the Italian archaeological site of Pompeii. The three were taking part in a challenge called the Vesuvius Challenge.

Event organisers said the scrolls are part of the Herculaneum papyri, a collection of around 800 volumes written in Greek script that were charred during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

The scrolls, kept at the Institut de France in Paris and the National Library of Naples, resemble charred wooden branches at first glance and crumble when you try to open them.

The deciphering contest will use high-resolution CT scans of the four volumes, and will offer a cash prize to accelerate research.

The three recipients of the prize money are a doctoral student in Berlin, a SpaceX intern and a robotics student in Switzerland.

The team used AI to identify the ink on the carbonized papyrus, then used machine learning models to decipher Greek characters that are nearly impossible to read with the naked eye.

One of the winners, a SpaceX intern, last year successfully deciphered the first word from one of the scrolls, which he found to mean “purple” in Greek.

According to organizers, the trio’s research has revealed that about 5 percent of the scrolls have been deciphered.