Israeli researchers create AI to translate ancient cuneiform Akkadian texts

Arkeonews ^ | 4 May 2023 | Leman Altuntas

[SunkenCiv]

Akkadian language inscription on the obelisk of Manishtushu-Wikipedia

[fhayek]

It’s all Greek to me...

[ConservativeInPA]

Here’s an instant where AI seems appropriately useful. I wonder if the AI model shows biases in its interpretation.

[arthurus]

Now how about Cretan Linear A?

[PeterPrinciple]

allowing automatic and accurate translation

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Just because you get a translation doesn’t mean it is a good translaton......................

[Verginius Rufus]

I once heard a lecture by an Israeli scholar who specializes in the Ancient Near East. He said that none of the experts in the field knows all of the ancient languages (there are too many of them).

[Verginius Rufus]

Just because you get a translation doesn't mean it is a good translaton......

If the texts are government decrees or other official documents, maybe the guiding principle should be "close enough for government work."

[sphinx]

Fascinating. I am prepared to be surprised in any and all directions.

Maybe AI could be unleashed on the Venona Project intercepts, only a small fraction of which were ever deciphered. If the originals still exist. There are innumerable corners of the history of the period that could be illuminated.

[KittyKares]

Maybe the English comes out like a Google Translate product which is useful for giving you the gist of it.

[Pilsner]

Just because you get a translation doesn’t mean it is a good translaton

I think the machine translation would be used to identify which of the hundreds of thousands of untranslated tablets should be translated by a human.

[telescope115]

Amazing. The ancient scribes must’ve been really patient with whoever was dictating this stuff, or Vice Versa. There’s a lot of effort in carving all those symbols, it seems.

I wonder if they got paid by the symbol…

[PIF]

Given that there is a cultural gap of more than 2,000 years in translating ancient Akkadian, this is a noteworthy accomplishment...

—
Akkadian Empire 2334 - 2154 BC Can you say over 4,000 years?

[SunkenCiv]

selections from three keywords (mostly Epigraphy and Language), sorted:

• Using AI to fill in the missing gaps in ancient texts [03/14/2022]
• AI Analysis Shows Two Scribes Wrote One of the Dead Sea Scrolls [04/23/2021]
• Google launches hieroglyphics translator that uses AI to to decipher images of Ancient Egyptian script [07/20/2020]
• Researchers shut down AI that invented its own language [07/27/2017]
• Computer Program Learning to Read Paleo-Hebrew Letters [05/23/2015]
• What did ancient Babylonian songs sound like? Something like this [IF they were into cool jazz] [12/16/2014]
• Computer scientist cracks mysterious 'Copiale Cipher' [10/25/2011]
• The Sound of Akkadian -- Listen to Ancient Babylonian online [10/01/2010]
• Google launches Latin translation tool [09/30/2010]
• Computers to translate world's 'lost' languages after program deciphers ancient text [07/21/2010]
• Computer program proves Shakespeare didn't work alone, researchers claim [10/12/2009]
• Computers unlock more secrets of the mysterious Indus Valley script [08/03/2009]

[SunkenCiv]

[BipolarBob]

Where is the Rosetta Cuneiform Stela?

[Buttons12]

They should give it a crack at the Voynich manuscript while they’re at it.

[HombreSecreto]

In before “be sure to drink your Ovaltine.”

[flaglady47]

“Now how about Cretan Linear A?”

Yes, I hope that’s next on the AI translation of texts. Would love to have that mystery solved. Dying of curiosity, I am.

[imardmd1]

This Post #1 is not an image uf cuneiform, is it? Looks more pictorial, like heiroglyphics, eh>?

[Red Badger]

Microsoft supposedly has an AI that can read any language, even if it never was taught how........................