Spoken Past

Herculaneum

Articles tagged Herculaneum.

Ancient Graffiti Voices of the Forgotten

Pompeii Graffiti: Insults, Sex, and Roman Daily Life

Aug 21, 2025-By Caiden Pannell

Pompeii graffiti preserves insults, jokes, desire, politics, and ordinary Roman speech. The walls reveal daily life beyond elite literature.

Carbonised papyrus fragments from Herculaneum with visible Greek text

Herculaneum Scrolls: How AI Reads the Unreadable

Aug 10, 2025-By Caiden Pannell

The Herculaneum scrolls were carbonized by Vesuvius in 79 CE. CT imaging and machine learning are now recovering the Greek text hidden inside them.

Support

Keep Spoken Past independent

If you value fast, ad-free, source-driven history, consider a small contribution. It keeps the site maintained and the work accessible.