Unrolled at last
终于展开
AI could help unearth a trove of lost classical texts
人工智能可以帮助大批失传的古希腊罗马文本重见天日
- treasure trove 无主财宝；宝藏，宝库（贮藏珍宝、知识等）
Computers could let archaeologists read hundreds of burnt scrolls from a Roman library
计算机让考古学家可以阅读一座古罗马图书馆中数百个被烧焦的卷轴
- scroll （供书写的）长卷纸，卷轴；（石刻或木雕的）涡卷形装饰；滚屏、滚动
THE OBJECT known as P.Herc.Paris.3 resembles a dark grey lump of charcoal, about the size and shape of a banana. That explains its nickname: Banana Boy. It is in fact a papyrus scroll, found in the ruins of a villa in the Roman town of Herculaneum, in Campania. Along with hundreds of other scrolls in the villa’s library, it was carbonised when scorching gases engulfed the town during the same eruption of Mount Vesuvius, in 79AD, that also buried the nearby town of Pompeii.
这个被称为P.Herc.Paris.3的物体看上去像一块深灰色的木炭。因其大小、形状都和香蕉差不多，而得到了“香蕉小子”（Banana Boy）的绰号。它实际上是一个莎草纸卷轴，出土于意大利坎帕尼亚大区（Campania）的古罗马城镇赫库兰尼姆（Herculaneum）的一座庄园遗址中。公元79年，维苏威火山（Mount Vesuvius）喷发，灼热的气体吞噬了整个城镇，“香蕉小子”和庄园图书馆里的其他千百个卷轴全部被烧成焦炭。也正是这一场火山喷发埋葬了附近的庞贝城。
- papyrus 纸莎草；（古埃及用的）纸莎草纸；（写在纸莎草纸上的）文献，文稿
- scorching 酷热的；猛烈的、激烈的、有力的
- engulf 包围、吞没、淹没
Although the scrolls survived, their charring means that unrolling them is almost impossible. Now, nearly 2,000 years later, words from inside Banana Boy have been revealed for the first time, after volunteers competing in a prize challenge used X-rays and artificial intelligence to do the unrolling virtually.
虽然这些卷轴得以幸存，但因为被烧成了焦炭，所以几乎不可能打开了。如今，在近2000年之后的一场有奖挑战赛中，参赛者使用X射线和人工智能（AI）虚拟展开了“香蕉小子”，从而首次揭示了它内部的文字。
