Computer science student Farritor is first to decode word on ancient scroll

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Luke Farritor, a senior majoring in computer science in the Raikes School, is shown with superimposed Greek text from a nearly 2,000-year-old scroll that his work helping to decipher. (Craig Chandler / University Communication and Marketing)
Luke Farritor, a senior majoring in computer science in the Raikes School, is shown with superimposed Greek text from a nearly 2,000-year-old scroll that his work helping to decipher. (Craig Chandler / University Communication and Marketing)

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Luke Farritor, a Nebraska Engineering senior majoring in computer science, is getting international attention and little sleep in his quest to develop AI-based programs that will read and decipher fragile ancient scrolls.

Poring over Python code and Greek letters, Farritor is building on the foundation of his recent success - winning a $40,000 top prize in an international competition to decipher a word on a charred papyrus scroll that was all but destroyed in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.

Currently, Farritor is focused on an end-of-the-year deadline to claim a $700,000 grand prize in the Vesuvius Challenge, available to the first submission that can isolate four passages of contiguous text, each at least 140 letters long with at least 85 percent of them legible. 



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