9 July 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

Archaeologists have found an intriguing Iron Age “shrine” in the Yorkshire Wolds

19 September 2021

19 September 2021

Archaeologists have discovered an interesting ancient Iron Age “shrine” in the Yorkshire Wolds, which was marked out by meticulously placed...

Who really fought in the Battle of Himera? Researchers found the answer to the question

14 May 2021

14 May 2021

According to the Ancient Greek Historians, victory over the Carthaginians in the Battle of Himera was won by the alliance...

The Life of the Maya Ambassador Found in El Palmar was not Easy

18 March 2021

18 March 2021

El Palmar is a small plaza compound in Mexico near the borders of Belize and Guatemala. Archaeologists Kenichiro Tsukamoto and...

Farmer Found Sarcophagus of Hellenistic Period in his Field

9 April 2021

9 April 2021

The citizen named E. G. in Akçakoca, Taşkuyucak District of Gölmarmara district of Manisa (Turkey), while plowing his field, thought...

Archaeologists found gold coins from the time of Justinian the Great in Northern Bulgaria

3 September 2024

3 September 2024

Archaeologists have discovered five gold coins dating from the reign of Justinian the Great (483-565) in Debnevo, the largest village...

Researcher Says There is Similarity Between Mayan and Shu Cultures

12 April 2021

12 April 2021

The similarities between Mayan civilization and Shu culture draw the attention of researchers. As it is known, the Sanxingdui ruins,...

Ushabti figurines on display at Izmir Archeology Museum

18 September 2021

18 September 2021

The 2,700-year-old “Ushabti” statuettes, discovered in archaeological digs in western Turkey and used in Egyptian burial ceremonies, are being shown...

The Basilica cistern, which is said to have the sarcophagus of Medusa or the Mysterious Snake Woman, was restored

21 July 2022

21 July 2022

The Basilica Cistern, one of the magnificent ancient structures of Istanbul, was restored. Besides being the greatest work of the...

A cave painting found in Egyptian Sahara depicts a nativity scene 3,000 years before Jesus’ Birth

21 December 2023

21 December 2023

5,000-year-old rock art depicting the oldest nativity scene ever found has been found in Egypt’s Sahara Desert: A newborn between...

2,000-Year-Old Artifacts Found at Swat’s Butkara Site in Pakistan, Including Coins and Kharosthi Inscriptions

14 February 2025

14 February 2025

Excavations at the Butkara Stupa, located near Mingora in Swat, Pakistan, have uncovered significant findings, including two-thousand-year-old coins, pottery, and...

The place of Puduhepa’s hometown Lawazantiya will be illuminated with Tatarlı Höyük

9 November 2021

9 November 2021

Excavations at Tatarlı Höyük (mound) are trying to reach findings that will enable the determination of the location of Lawazantiya,...

Turkish researchers to work in Mount Ağrı believed to host Noah’s Ark remains

15 December 2022

15 December 2022

A team from Istanbul Technical University (İTÜ) and Ağrı İbrahim Çeçen University (AİÇÜ) has started in the area where the...

Citizen scientists discover more than 1,000 new burial mounds in a Dutch archaeological project

29 January 2023

29 January 2023

A Dutch archaeological project in which thousands of amateur sleuths combed specialized maps and high resolution photographs resulted in the...

New Study Reveals That the First English Settlers in North America Ate Dogs to Survive

28 May 2024

28 May 2024

The first English settlers to arrive in North America ate indigenous dogs to survive an extreme period of starvation, according...

Lead Glass Jewelry was Mass-Produced in Medieval Poland from Local Raw Material

7 April 2025

7 April 2025

Recent archaeological research has unveiled significant insights into the mass production of lead glass jewelry in medieval Poland, confirming that...