Uncovering Lost Knowledge from the Ancient Library of Herculaneum: Overcoming Damage and Reviving the Human Experience using Physical Evidence, AI, and the Structuring of Diverse Datacore
UnLost · Horizon Europe grant · 2026-01-01–2031-12-31
EC contribution
Total cost
Beneficiaries
About the data
Source: CORDIS (official EU open data), Horizon Europe. Framework HORIZON · call ERC-2024-SyG · scheme HORIZON-ERC-SYG · topic ERC-2024-SyG. CORDIS record →
Objective
The loss of something precious triggers an immediate instinct to find it. But what if the quest does not end there? We see it and find it, yet the precious object is irreparably damaged, and its true knowledge is locked away behind its damage, frustratingly denying us access to the information it holds. In such cases, the object essentially remains lost. Each day, in fact, treasured relics bearing unique witness to the human experience are lost to decay and damage due to the elements of the environment, the ravages of time, and the hands of war. And while we rejoice at every inspiring, arduous discovery and recovery of a physical object, we often must acknowledge that much of the knowledge it contains remains lost. UnLost will revolutionise the way we study damaged, complex heritage materials by capitalising upon today’s vast scientific capabilities. UnLost will harness these capabilities to capture immense amounts of disparate data and combine them with a novel, much-needed systematic and rigorous process to extract, integrate, study, archive, and protect multi-modal data so that lost knowledge is rendered – and kept – UnLost. The Herculaneum papyrus scrolls, buried and carbonised by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE and then excavated in the 18th century, represent the epitome of such found, yet still lost, heritage. The only complete Classical library from the ancient world to have survived and been found in situ, much of the textual material contained in this renowned collection remains hidden within its profoundly damaged and fragmented form. The goal of the UnLost team is to create and deploy new methods of digitization, AI-inspired inference, and archival-quality complex digital objects so as to revive what has been lost from Herculaneum and develop new benchmark approaches for the restoration of damaged heritage objects as a whole.
Beneficiaries (5)
| Organisation | Country | Role | EC contribution | SME |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI FEDERICO II | IT | coordinator | €3,661,179 | |
| UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY | US | participant | €3,979,631 | |
| FRIEDRICH-ALEXANDER-UNIVERSITAET ERLANGEN-NUERNBERG | DE | participant | €3,364,635 | |
| MINISTERO DELLA CULTURA | IT | participant | €425,669 | |
| Israel Antiquities Authority | IL | participant | €153,750 |
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