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Artificial intelligence helped decipher cuneiform tablets from 5,000 years ago
A groundbreaking artificial intelligence system can read cuneiform tablets in seconds. The model created by archaeologists and machine learning specialists is likely to revolutionize research into the oldest writing mankind has produced.
Can artificial intelligence make ancient languages more accessible? The researchers believe it can. They have developed a machine learning model that translates Akkadian into English. By doing so, it can quickly and relatively efficiently read cuneiform writing from tablets collected by archaeologists over the past two hundred years.
Cuneiform tablets: a revolutionary technology
Cuneiform writing was one of the first groundbreaking inventions in human history. They were invented by the Sumerians more than 3,000 years BC. The writing characters were imprinted in wet clay with the help of styluses made from reed stalks. Depending on the inclination of the stylus and the pressure, different kinds of marks were left in the clay in the form of wedges. If one wanted the record to be permanent, the plates were burned.
This innovation proved to be groundbreaking from our point of view. Clay tablets 5,000 years old have survived to our time. In turn, along with them — ancient…
