AI is Rewriting History: How DeepMind’s Aeneas is Unlocking the Secrets of Ancient Inscriptions
For decades, painstakingly deciphering fragmented ancient inscriptions has been the domain of highly specialized historians. But what if an AI could dramatically accelerate that process, not by replacing experts, but by acting as a powerful research assistant? Google DeepMind’s new tool, **Aeneas**, is doing just that, and its implications extend far beyond the dusty halls of academia. A recent study published in Nature shows Aeneas boosted research ideas for 90% of inscriptions tested, signaling a potential revolution in how we understand the past.
The Challenge of Fragmented History
Ancient inscriptions are rarely complete. Weathering, damage, and deliberate destruction leave historians with incomplete texts, forcing them to rely on educated guesses and exhaustive cross-referencing. This is where Aeneas excels. The system takes partial transcriptions and scanned images of inscriptions, predicting missing text based on a vast database of nearly 150,000 cataloged Latin inscriptions – spanning from modern-day Britain to Iraq. Imagine a damaged slab starting with “…US People.” Aeneas, like a skilled epigrapher, would suggest “Senate” precedes “People,” reconstructing the common phrase “The Senate and the People of Rome.”
Why Traditional AI Falls Short
While large language models (LLMs) like Google’s Gemini have demonstrated impressive text generation capabilities, they aren’t ideally suited for this task. LLMs are trained on billions of documents, but high-quality scans of ancient inscriptions are comparatively scarce. This data limitation necessitates a specialized approach. Aeneas isn’t trying to be a generalist; it’s a focused tool built specifically for the nuances of epigraphy – the study of inscriptions. This targeted training allows it to identify subtle patterns and parallels that a broader LLM might miss.
Aeneas in Action: From Ankara to Academia
The Aeneas team isn’t aiming to automate epigraphy, but to augment it. “We’re interested in crafting a tool that will integrate with the workflow of a historian,” explains Yannis Assael, a researcher at Google DeepMind. The system provides researchers with a range of hypotheses, saving them countless hours of manual searching. To validate its effectiveness, researchers tested Aeneas against the Monumentum Ancyranum, a famous inscription in Turkey. Remarkably, Aeneas’s suggestions aligned with existing historical analysis, even mirroring the detailed approach of a seasoned epigrapher – a result described as “jaw-dropping” by Thea Sommerschield of the University of Nottingham.
Beyond Reconstruction: Uncovering Hidden Connections
Aeneas’s power lies not just in filling in the blanks, but in identifying connections between inscriptions that might otherwise go unnoticed. By cross-referencing text with its extensive database, it can highlight similar phrases, analogies, and historical contexts. This capability could unlock new insights into trade routes, political alliances, and cultural exchanges in the ancient world. For example, identifying a previously unknown connection between an inscription in Roman Britain and one in Roman Syria could rewrite our understanding of imperial administration.
The Future of Digital Epigraphy
Despite its promise, Aeneas isn’t a magic bullet. It can’t interpret the meaning of texts, and its usefulness on obscure or poorly preserved inscriptions remains to be seen. Kathleen Coleman, a classics professor at Harvard, rightly points out that the Monumentum Ancyranum is a well-studied example. The real test will come with less familiar material. However, the potential is undeniable. We can anticipate several key developments in this field:
- Expansion of Databases: Continued digitization of inscriptions worldwide will be crucial, creating even richer training datasets for AI models.
- Multilingual Capabilities: Extending Aeneas’s capabilities to other ancient languages – Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and cuneiform – would dramatically broaden its impact.
- Integration with Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Mapping inscriptions geographically could reveal patterns and connections related to ancient settlements and trade networks. The Digital Classicist provides a good overview of GIS applications in Classics.
- AI-Powered Image Enhancement: Combining Aeneas with AI tools that can enhance faded or damaged inscription images will further improve accuracy.
Aeneas represents a paradigm shift in how we approach the study of the past. It’s not about replacing human expertise, but about empowering historians with tools that can accelerate discovery and unlock new layers of understanding. As these technologies mature, we can expect a more nuanced and complete picture of the ancient world to emerge. What new historical narratives will be revealed as AI continues to decipher the secrets etched in stone?
