Can you decipher these roles? Scientists are offering a £400,000 prize if you can read a manuscript that was charred during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius

They were turned around charred lumps throughout the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Now scientists are offering £400,000 to the person who can decipher the charred Herculaneum scrolls.

These ancient papyrus scrolls are thought to be – a material that resembles paper contain profound philosophical and literary texts by ancient Greek and Roman scholars.

The problem is that any attempt to roll out the burned cylinders will turn them to dust because they are so fragile.

Scientists have therefore turned to ingenious methods, such as X-ray scans, ink detection software and AI, to virtually ‘unfurl’ them.

Scientists from the University of Oxford have successfully used X-ray scans to reveal parts of the text on one of the scrolls, officially called PHerc.172.

But experts are calling on smart engineers who can develop AI methods to reveal more of the hidden text – with the hefty cash prize up for grabs.

Earlier this year, students won $700,000 (£550,000) when they used AI to find out what was on another scroll, owned by the Institut de France in Paris.

Scientists from the University of Oxford used the nearby Diamond Light Source scanning facility in Harwell, Oxfordshire to reveal new text on Bodleian scroll PHerc.172, held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.

They say that the newly revealed text is Greek and that they have interpreted a few fragments of words, but they still have to decipher the full sentences.

“We are already on the verge of recovering entire words,” they say in a statement.

At the bottom of a segment may be the beginning of διατροπή, a word found in other Herculaneum scrolls that would mean something like ‘confusion, excitement or disgust’.

Similarly, in another segment, the string of Greek letters τυγχαν can be the beginning of the verb τυγχάνω, meaning ‘to happen’.

Intriguingly, the ink seems to appear more clearly in the outer coverings of the scroll, and in some cases it is only clearly visible every other line – suggesting that the scribe dipped his pen once every two lines.

“A human hand wrote this text 2,000 years ago, and it is an unforgettable experience to be the first person at that time to see this text,” the team said.

The deadline for this year’s main prize – awarded for recovering complete passages from various Herculaneum scrolls – is December 31.

Almost £400,000 in prizes is being offered to anyone who can make further progress in reading some of the Herculaneum scrolls, reports the Times.

“One thing we know will happen: we are going to restore the text of this scroll, but we need your help to do it,” the team added.

In total, about 1,800 papyrus scrolls were converted into carbon in the eruption almost 2,000 years ago.

They were housed in a large villa in the Italian city of Herculaneum, just one of the cities smothered by superheated volcanic deposits.

In the 1750s excavations of the villa began and a number of scrolls were destroyed or thrown away in the belief that they were lumps of charcoal.

Sadly, hundreds more were destroyed during attempts to unroll the scrolls, most of which are kept in the National Library in Naples.

Several hundred scrolls have been unearthed that were never opened and remain rolled up with the contents sealed.

In the early 19th century, the Bodleian scroll and five other scrolls were given to the future George IV of England by Ferdinand IV, King of Naples and Sicily – reportedly in exchange for some kangaroos.

Modern efforts have focused on digital methods of reading the texts without physically unrolling the papyri to avoid damage.

Such attempts are known as ‘virtual unrolling’ and often use X-rays and other light sources to scan the objects and reveal previously unknown text.

In Italy, a team used a technique called shortwave infrared hyperspectral imaging, which picks up variations in the way light reflects off the black ink on the papyrus.

A newly discovered passage from one of the scrolls using this technique has revealed that Plato spent his last night destroying a slave girl’s ‘lack of rhythm’ as she played the flute.

Suffering from a fever, the philosopher listened to music and welcomed guests before dying at the age of 80 or 81 around 348 BC.

Graziano Ranocchia, a papyrologist at the University of Pisa in Italy, said, “Plato is just the beginning.”