Millenia-old Hittite tablets interpreted with AI

ÇORUN

Deputy Culture and Tourism Minister Gürkan Yazgı has announced a groundbreaking initiative where nearly 2,000 ancient Hittite tablets, housing millennia-old historical records, are being deciphered by artificial intelligence.

The endeavor marks the world’s first attempt at leveraging AI to unravel the mysteries concealed within the ancient artifacts.

The initial phase of the project, aimed at digitizing Hittite cuneiform tablets housed in the Ankara Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Istanbul Archaeological Museums and Çorum Museum, has recently been completed.

In collaboration with Ankara University and the General Directorate of Museums under the Culture and Tourism Ministry, the project entailed high-resolution photography and 3D scanning of the ancient tablets, followed by their integration into an AI-driven learning framework.

A digital library is being established to make the content of the historical documents accessible to the global community.

In the first stage, 500 cuneiform tablets were subjected to AI analysis, achieving a success rate of 75 percent. Subsequently, nearly 2,000 tablets have undergone similar AI-driven interpretation.

The insights from these readings will be disseminated to the scientific community through collaborative efforts with Hittitologists.

During a symposium on the Hittite civilization held in the Central Anatolian city of Çorum, which once housed the capital of Hattusa, Yazgı emphasized the ministry’s commitment to harnessing technology to deepen the understanding of Hittite culture.

Through 3D scanning and AI, efforts have been made to restore and complete fragmented tablets, he said, adding that this comprehensive approach aims to provide reliable insights into the ancient civilization and facilitate further research and restoration.

“As the ministry, we will work more intensively together with our universities in order to evaluate and report these findings in both excavation and restoration works and to better introduce the Hittite civilization to the world.”

Yazgı added that the data obtained from the tablets will be shared with Ankara University and the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Museums of the Culture and Tourism Ministry through a scientific study.