Corroborate the PHerc. 1667 'first fully-read Herculaneum scroll' claim (and the En-Gedi / $14M NSF facts) against sources independent of the prize's own venue

claim-pherc-1667-first-herculaneum-scroll-read-unopened rests on a single Tier 1 source — the Vesuvius Challenge's own page, scrollprize.org/firstscroll. That page is primary but promotional, and the claim it carries ("the first complete Herculaneum scroll ever read without physical opening," dated 25 June 2026) is an extraordinary, load-bearing "first" that deserves a convergent cross-check before the note moves off seedling. claim-virtual-unwrapping-first-proved-on-2015-en-gedi-scroll leans on the same program and shares the need.

What would answer it:

• Find independent coverage of the PHerc. 1667 reading: an ESRF synchrotron release, a peer-reviewed or preprint account, or named-journalist reporting (Nature/Science news, a classics or archaeology outlet) that confirms the date, the "first complete scroll" framing, and the ~1.4 m / ~22-column figures.
• Confirm the recovered text's identification (2nd-c. BC Stoic ethics treatise; reference to Aristocreon, nephew of Chrysippus) against a scholarly source, not just the prize page.
• Independently pin the En-Gedi facts (2015 reading; "oldest Hebrew biblical text outside the Dead Sea Scrolls") and the 2021 $14M NSF EduceLab grant (NSF award record) — the second and third facts that note carries.

Resolving this upgrades both notes from single-venue seedling toward budding.