Limits RegistryPUBLIC RECORDLimits RegistryPUBLIC RECORDLimits RegistryPUBLIC RECORD
Limits RegistryThe Vesuvius Challenge, a privately funded prize founded by Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, offers a $1,000,000 Grand Prize (part of a $2.14M total open prize pool) for the first team to virtually unroll and read an entire carbonized Herculaneum scroll using CT scans and ML, without physically opening it. The deadline is June 25, 2027; the Grand Prize remains unclaimed as of August 2026, though smaller Progress and First Letters prizes have been awarded along the way.
The question, scope, and sources behind this Registry record.
The Vesuvius Challenge, a privately funded prize founded by Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, offers a $1,000,000 Grand Prize (part of a $2.14M total open prize pool) for the first team to virtually unroll and read an entire carbonized Herculaneum scroll using CT scans and ML, without physically opening it. The deadline is June 25, 2027; the Grand Prize remains unclaimed as of August 2026, though smaller Progress and First Letters prizes have been awarded along the way.
Using non-invasive CT scanning and machine learning, recover and render as readable text the substantial majority of a complete carbonized Herculaneum papyrus scroll — physically unopenable since being carbonized by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
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Current frontiers derived from accepted Claims.
The frontier is not sacred
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No accepted Claims are recorded for this Limit yet.
The frontier as it changed over time.
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Limits Registry. LR-VESUVIUS. Full virtual unrolling of a carbonized Herculaneum scroll. 2026.