Ancient history with the help of AI

Federica Nicolardi, a papyrologist at the University of Naples in Italy, could not believe her eyes. A mystery of two thousand years of ancient history has been revealed today with the help of modern technology. With the help of AI and computed tomography, it has been possible to decipher a piece of rolled papyrus that was burned and turned black in a volcanic eruption in 79 AD, which was recovered from Pompeii, Italy in the 18th century.

Finally, resorting to AI. That is what broke the fortress. Thanks to the power of ‘computed tomography’, three-dimensional mapping and AI-based ‘machine learning’, the entire papyrus is now readable.

Although several attempts have been made to decipher the papyrus, it has not been successful so far. However, this time, the entire papyrus has been deciphered through AI-based technology. The ancient Greek letters have been read through ‘computed tomography’, three-dimensional mapping and machine learning. Analyzing the letters scattered across five columns, Nicolardi said, “It’s incredible! Two thousand years of history is now in our hands. This is a historic moment in the world of papyrology.”

The biggest advantage of AI technology is that it is capable of storing and analyzing a huge amount of data, which is not possible for humans. Thea Somerschild, a history researcher at the University of Nottingham, said, “After 2022, we started working on the ‘Ithaca’ model, which is not only capable of giving an idea of ​​the script, but also the time and place of that script.”

In addition, the ‘Transformer Model’ of machine learning is expected to be able to understand the complex linguistic patterns of ancient writing. Through this technology, the unforgettable patterns of ancient civilizations will be understood more clearly and it will open a new horizon for our history.