17 June 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

An artificial intelligence “Ithaca” that will improve our understanding of ancient history

A deep neural network trained to restore ancient Greek texts can do so with 72% accuracy when used by historians, suggests a Nature paper.

The findings could assist with the restoration and attribution of newly discovered or uncertain inscriptions with improved speed and accuracy, advancing our understanding of ancient history.

Ancient history relies on disciplines such as epigraphy—the study of inscribed texts known as inscriptions—for evidence of the thought, language, society, and history of past civilizations.

To understand the history of ancient civilizations, historians study the inscriptions created by past individuals, written directly on materials — such as stone, pottery, or metal — that have survived until today. However, over the centuries, many inscriptions have been damaged to the point of illegibility, transported far from their original location, and their date of writing is steeped in uncertainty. Specialists in the study of inscriptions, known as epigraphers, can reconstruct missing texts, but their traditional methods are highly complex and time-consuming.

Damaged inscription: a decree of the Athenian Assembly relating to the management of the Acropolis (dating 485/4 BCE). IG I3 4B. (CC BY-SA 3.0, WikiMedia)
Damaged inscription: a decree of the Athenian Assembly relating to the management of the Acropolis (dating 485/4 BCE). IG I3 4B. (CC BY-SA 3.0, WikiMedia)

To overcome the constraints of current epigraphic methods, Yannis Assael, Thea Sommerschield and their colleagues tested a deep neural network (named Ithaca), a type of artificial intelligence that was trained to restore, date, and place ancient Greek inscriptions. Ithaca’s architecture focuses on collaboration, decision support, and interpretability.

The authors found that Ithaca could achieve 62% accuracy when used alone to restore damaged texts, and 72% accuracy when it is used by a historian. Additionally, Ithaca could also help to determine inscriptions’ place and date of writing; in their experiments, it attributed inscriptions to their original locations with 71% accuracy and dated them to less than 30 years from the date ranges proposed by historians.

Ithaca is the first model to tackle the three central tasks in the epigrapher’s workflow holistically. Not only does it advance the previous state-of-the-art set by Pythia, but it also uses deep learning for geographical and chronological attribution for the very first time and on an unprecedented scale.

This inscription (Inscriptiones Graecae, volume 1, edition 3, document 4, face B (IG I3 4B)) records a decree concerning the Acropolis of Athens and dates to 485/4 BC. Marsyas, Epigraphic Museum, WikiMedia CC BY 2.5.

To demonstrate the creative potential of Ithaca, the researchers applied the model to a current discussion of dating a group of inscriptions central to the political history of classical Athens.

 Historians disagree on whether these decrees should pre- or post-date 446/5 BC depending on the (dis)belief in using specific letterforms as dating criteria (the three-bar sigma dating convention). In recent years, the validity of this dating convention was called into question—the dates of many decrees have been pushed to the 420s BC, therefore profoundly influencing our understanding of Athenian imperialism.

Ithaca’s predictions for these held-out texts independently align with the most recent dating breakthroughs, therefore overturning the conventional historical reading based on the sigma dating criterion. More specifically, whereas the I.PHI labels are on average 27 years off the ‘lower’ dating proposed by modern re-evaluations, Ithaca’s predictions are on average only 5 years off the newly proposed ground truths.

The findings could unlock the cooperative potential between artificial intelligence and historians, and improve our understanding of human history.

doi:10.1038/s41586-022-04448-z

Original article 

Related Articles

International Sand Sculpture Festival Opens with the Theme “The Lost City of Atlantis”

6 May 2021

6 May 2021

The 16th edition of the International Sand Sculpture Festival (SANDLAND) has begun in Turkey’s Mediterranean resort city of Antalya. Every...

The ruins found in Nara could be the Imperial House of Female Emperor Koken

1 July 2021

1 July 2021

Archaeologists unearthed one of the largest building remains ever found at the former site of the Heijokyu palace in the...

Early Female Emperors in Japan “Empress Kōken”

2 July 2021

2 July 2021

Born into the aristocratic Fujiwara clan, this extraordinary woman first ascended to the throne as Empress Kōken and became the...

Medallion of Emperor Caracalla Minted in Pergamon Found in Roman Tombs in Bulgaria

13 February 2024

13 February 2024

One of the valuable discoveries from the Roman tombs discovered near the village of Nova Varbovka in Strazhitsa municipality in...

Hidden Treasure from WWII: 500,000 Phantom Ceramic Coins Found

8 November 2024

8 November 2024

About 500,000 Maboroshi (phantom) ceramic coins manufactured due to metal shortages during World War II were discovered in a warehouse...

Statue heads of “Aphrodite” and “Dionysus” were found in Aizanoi Ancient City in Turkey’s

30 October 2021

30 October 2021

The statue heads of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, and Dionysus, the god of wine, were unearthed in...

Skeleton Of “Spanish Monk” in Palace of Cortés Turns Out To Be An Aztec Woman

26 January 2024

26 January 2024

Recent research at the Palace of Cortés in Cuernavaca, Mexico, has revealed a grave historical error. For 50 years, it...

The Discovery of a Bronze Age Game Board in Azerbaijan Challenges the Origin of One of the World’s Oldest Games

30 August 2024

30 August 2024

A new archaeological study revealed that an ancient board of a game, known as “Hounds and Jackals” or the “Game...

1,600-year-old Roman-era wine shop unearthed in Greece

29 January 2024

29 January 2024

A team led by Scott Gallimore of Wilfrid Laurier University and Martin Wells of Austin College discovered a 1,600-year-old Roman-era...

Archaeologists discovered how wine was cooled in Roman legions on the Danube

15 September 2023

15 September 2023

Lead archaeologist Piotr Dyczek, a professor at the Center for Research on Antiquities of Southeastern Europe at the University of...

The Cairo University archaeological mission unearths the tomb of Ramses II’s royal treasurer at Saqqara necropolis

1 November 2021

1 November 2021

Archaeologists working at the Saqqara necropolis have unearthed the tomb of Ptah-M-Wiah, a high-ranking ancient Egyptian official and head of...

The Oldest Semicircular Classroom in the Greek World Unearthed in Sicily

21 April 2025

21 April 2025

In a remarkable archaeological breakthrough in southern Sicily, an international team of researchers has uncovered an extraordinary ancient classroom that...

Bone workshop and oil lamp shop unearthed in Aizanoi ancient city in western Turkey

13 November 2021

13 November 2021

Archaeologists have unearthed a bone workshop and an oil lamp shop in an Aizanoi ancient city in the Çavdarhisar district...

The mythical hero of Troy and Rome Aeneas’s peerless mosaic discovered in Türkiye

11 May 2023

11 May 2023

A large mosaic depicting the legendary Trojan hero Aeneas, the protagonist of Virgil’s epic poem “The Aeneid” and the ancestor...

The World’s Largest Pyramid Is Hidden Within a Hill in Mexico

8 October 2022

8 October 2022

The largest and tallest pyramids in the world are incredible feats of design, engineering, and construction. The Great Pyramid of...