AI deciphers 400-year-old Borg cipher in Vatican Library

Researchers using machine learning have successfully deciphered the ‘Borg cipher’, a mysterious 408-page manuscript held in the Vatican Library that remained unreadable for over 400 years. The document, which features 34 obscure symbols, Roman letters, and an Arabic cover, was believed to contain secret medical remedies intended to avoid accusations of witchcraft.

The decoding process revealed thousands of unusual historical treatments, such as using high-quality red wine or fermented nutmeg to combat dysentery. Beáta Megyesi, a professor of computational linguistics at Stockholm University and a member of the research team, described the process as detective work that provides access to a lost historical world.

This breakthrough marks a step toward using artificial intelligence to more efficiently decode historical ciphers. Experts suggest that approximately 1% of materials in archives and libraries worldwide may be partially or totally encoded, presenting a significant opportunity for future historical discovery.