Meet Ithaca, Artificial Intelligence that will reveal hidden secrets of ancient civilisations

The earliest form of writing originated nearly 5000 years ago in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), representing the Sumerian language. However, these early manuscripts, inscriptions, manuals have suffered the wrath of time. Historians have long worried about the missing texts that could give an insight into the life and culture of ancient civilisation, Artificial Intelligence has now come to their aid. Named after the Greek island in Homer's Odyssey, Ithaca, the first deep neural network will help in not only restoring the missing text of damaged inscriptions, but also identifying their original location, and establishing the date they were written. Designed to assist and expand the historian's workflow, this AI has achieved 62 per cent accuracy when restoring damaged texts and improved the accuracy of historians from 25 per cent to 72 per cent.