A deep learning artificial intelligence (AI) model can predict missing words, fragments and sentences from cuneiform tablets that are up to 4500 years old.
Clay tablets inscribed with text written in the Akkadian language are key tools for understanding the cultures that existed in and around Mesopotamia – centred on present day Iraq – between 2500 BC and 100 AD. But the tablets’ age means many are damaged, with key sections of text missing.
Computer scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his colleagues across different departments collaborated to use AI to unlock the secrets of the tablets.
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They turned to a deep learning AI model already trained on 104 different languages, including some Semitic languages such as Hebrew, which shares similarities with Akkadian. They then fed this AI transcriptions of 10,000 cuneiform tablets. The model was able to suggest contextually accurate words and phrases to fill in the gaps in new cuneiform tablets it was shown, similar to the way a phone keyboard autosuggests the next word in a sentence.
The suggestions were tested by hiding known parts of the tablets and seeing if the model could complete them, which it could with 89 per cent accuracy – and occasionally even expanded possible interpretations of texts. “Sometimes the model threw [the experts] into a new line of thinking they didn’t have,” says Stanovsky.
“The major finding we have in this work is using other languages really helped in solving Akkadian,” he says. Without pre-training the model on those 104 different languages, accuracy was nearly 30 percentage points lower.
at Ariel University, Israel, who has also studied the use of AI to fill gaps in cuneiform tablets, says the model has “great potential”.
The model’s more inaccurate suggestions were due to it missing some context around the tablets.
“Archaeologists take into consideration a lot more context about the tablet. They know where it was excavated, know where from and the geopolitical forces – and take that into account,” says Stanosvky. “This is an assistive tool.”
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