Making headlines around the world, Brent Seales and his team of computer scientists set out on a mission to read the 2,000-year-old carbonized scrolls found in the remains of a villa in Herculaneum. Mt. Vesuvius’s eruption in 79 AD transformed the papyri, fusing together the layers of the scrolls and making them impossible to read. Can particle physics and AI finally reveal what the scrolls say?
Film Interviewees
- Caroline Petit – University of Warwick
- Brent Seales – University of Kentucky
- David Sider – New York University
- Shushma Malik – University of Cambridge
- Mantha Zarmakoupi – University of Pennsylvania
- Françoise Bérard – Director (2014-2021), Library of the Institut de France
- Seth Parker – University of Kentucky
- Laurent Chapon – Director of Physical Sciences (2016-2022), Diamond Light Source
- Valeria Piano – University of Florence
- James Brusuelas – University of Kentucky
Secrets of the Dead: The Herculaneum Scrolls is a production of Impossible Factual and The WNET Group, in association with ZDF Studios, Channel 5, SBS Australia, and France Télévisions. Narrated by Jay O. Sanders. Produced and Directed by Adam Luria. Edit Director is Ed Baranski. Executive Producers for Impossible Factual are Jonathan Drake and Steve Maher. For Secrets of the Dead: Benjamin Phelps is supervising producer; Stephanie Carter is executive producer; Stephen Segaller is executive in charge.
The Herculaneum Scrolls was produced with the participation of UK Animation Tax Relief. Funding for Secrets of the Dead is provided by public television viewers.