Ten months ago, the Vesuvius Challenge was launched to solve the ancient problem of the Herculaneum Papyri, a library of scrolls that were flash-fried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
Today there was an announcement that the project has succeeded. After 2000 years, they can finally read the scrolls:
![[Image: Scrl.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/hjGBFB51/Scrl.jpg)
These fifteen columns come from the very end of the first scroll they have been able to read and contain new text from the ancient world that has never been seen before. The author – probably Epicurean philosopher Philodemus – writes here about music, food, and how to enjoy life's pleasures. In the closing section, he throws shade at unnamed ideological adversaries – perhaps the stoics? – who "have nothing to say about pleasure, either in general or in particular."
The villa where the scrolls were found was only partially excavated, and scholars tell us that there may be thousands more scrolls underground.
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-...AImpNGdfLA
Today there was an announcement that the project has succeeded. After 2000 years, they can finally read the scrolls:
These fifteen columns come from the very end of the first scroll they have been able to read and contain new text from the ancient world that has never been seen before. The author – probably Epicurean philosopher Philodemus – writes here about music, food, and how to enjoy life's pleasures. In the closing section, he throws shade at unnamed ideological adversaries – perhaps the stoics? – who "have nothing to say about pleasure, either in general or in particular."
The villa where the scrolls were found was only partially excavated, and scholars tell us that there may be thousands more scrolls underground.
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-...AImpNGdfLA
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
