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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 Data

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.

Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-ERC-SYG - HORIZON ERC Synergy Grants

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2024-SyG

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Host institution

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI FEDERICO II
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 3 661 178,75
Address
CORSO UMBERTO I, 40
80138 Napoli
Italy

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Region
Sud Campania Napoli
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 3 661 178,75

Beneficiaries (5)

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