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Articles on Pompeii

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The Vesuvius Challenge incentivizes technological development by inviting researchers to figure out how to ‘read’ ancient papyri excavated from volcanic ash of Mount Vesuvius in Italy. Columns of Greek text retrieved from a portion of a scroll. (Vesuvius Challenge)

Ancient scrolls are being ‘read’ by machine learning – with human knowledge to detect language and make sense of them

However exciting the technological developments may be, the task of reading and analyzing the Greek and Latin texts recovered from the papyri will fall to human beings.
A fragment of a wall painting showing two lovers in bed from the House of L Caecilius Jucundus in Pompeii, now at Naples National Archaeological Museum. Wikimedia Commons

Friday essay: the erotic art of Ancient Greece and Rome

From phallus-shaped wind chimes to explicit erotica on lamps and cups, sex is everywhere in ancient Greek and Roman art. But our interpretations of these images say much about our own culture.
Brothels in Pompeii were decorated with murals depicting erotic and exotic scenes: but the reality was far more brutal and mundane. Thomas Shahan/Wikimedia Commons

The grim reality of the brothels of Pompeii

Though their activities were depicted alluringly in murals, the sex workers of Pompeii were slaves who lived hard lives.

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