February 13, 2024 –
Almost two millennia after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius hardened them into lumps of coal in 79 CE, previously indecipherable papyrus scrolls from the ancient library of Herculaneum are finally yielding their secrets, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI) technologies created with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).
…
The three decoded more than 2,000 characters of text, which papyrologists have translated to a discussion of the nature of pleasure, most likely part of a previously unknown work by Epicurean poet and philosopher Philodemus of Gadara. In the translated passages, the author considers whether the availability or scarcity of goods such as food affects our experience of pleasure—and critiques intellectual rivals who “have nothing to say about pleasure, either in general or in particular, when it is a question of definition.”