there are still at least 300 full papyri from Herculaneum waiting to be deciphered by AI, which is equivalent to 30 books of 400 pages.it is also believed that it's just the tip of the iceberg, and a far bigger collection of papyri hasn't been excavated yet in that villa (that part might never be excavated though, except if some multibillionaire buys the whole town).anyway i hope it's not all epicurian slop and that guy had some classics. just one papyrus full of ancient greek tragedies or epics would be so incredible. we would have to rewrite 2000 years of commentaries on the ancient poets.and we will find out in the coming years if all goes well!!
>>25200990We can only hope and dream. Some of them are undoubtedly carbonised even beyond what the technology is capable of. They need to excavate more as they believe that the building would have housed another library of Latin works. Unfortunately it's a lot of work and would disrupt the area. I often imagine if we found the Cypria, Aethiopis, Little Iliad, Iliou Persis of the Epic cycle, Margites, Petronius' Satyricon in full, Sappho's poetry. But unfortunately all we're likely to get is a few pages of some really bad secondary philosophical writing.
>>25200990This used to give me hard-ons when I was studying the classics. Imagine if there's something genuine from Aristotle in there - actual books. Or some more tragedies we have never read. And as >>25201007 the Satyricon in full would already be a fantastic book to find.What are your best guesses? What would you like there to be?
odds this contains the rest of the homeric cycle? are there known any other such troves as this that they could be hiding in?
Amazing what they can do with CT scanning and such.Remember when they found that silver amulet in a German grave a couple years ago, and it turned out to be an 1,800 Christian creed, the earliest evidence of Christianity in Europe.
>>25200990Reminds me of how they used to open them up 100 years ago. Big machine delicately unfurling the pages over tens of hours, but ultimately destroying much of the contents. Thinking about how much has been lost, it's such a shame.There are figures somewhere, I won't even begin to corroborate their authenticity because I don't know how, that 94% of all written Latin has survived. In terms of classical literature, it is frankly a miracle we have even 6%. How lucky we are that this much has been dredged through the ages.
>>25201007>>25201012It'd be good to get a more in-depth history of an emperor, or maybe a text about another land like Egypt or China or India
>>25201007>But unfortunately all we're likely to get is a few pages of some really bad secondary philosophical writing.A lot of what we know about entire philosophers comes from an offhand quote from a different work. There's no standardization so you could find a lost work at the end of a known one. Or hell we could get insights into entirely lost traditions from a single document, say Mithraism. The Dead Sea Scrolls changed biblical studies forever and that was one lucky find.
digits and it contains Claudius' work on the Etruscans
>>25201104Political writings are often propaganda, hopefully it's something of actual value.
>>25200990I just want some of Ptolemy's account of Alexander's campaigns. Please, God. Please.
>>25200990Cool
Chrysippus and Parmenides and Heraclitus would be nice, other presocratics.Homeric Epic Cycle.Timon's SilloiHopefully not Aristotle's dialogues no matter how poetic they were—it's not something we 'need' hermeneutically or religiously, compared to literally anything else.Cicero's ConsolationSpeusippus and Xenocrates so people might finally shut up about the Unwritten Doctrines
Aristotle's book on comedy would be a nice find
