Science Workflows - Conversing with antiquity — Google DeepMindSkip to main content
Google DeepMind
Build with Gemini<br>Try Gemini
Workflows<br>Conversing with antiquity<br>An agentic AI partner for expanding historical research
Try the skill
Thea Sommerschield, Durham University<br>Zoi Tsangalidou and Yannis Assael, Google DeepMind
Ancient inscriptions offer a direct window into the human past. As invaluable historical sources, they preserve everything from imperial decrees to everyday transactions of ordinary citizens. However, many inscriptions have been damaged to the point of illegibility, their date and place of writing steeped in uncertainty. Reassembling these broken narratives is one of humanity’s greatest challenges, requiring expert historians to solve complex, localized puzzles of text, time and space.<br>For nearly a decade, we have partnered closely with epigraphers to pioneer state of the art AI tools for historical research. The milestones in this journey include Ithaca (2022) and Aeneas (2025), our generative models for restoring, dating and placing ancient Greek and Latin inscriptions. To place these capabilities directly into the hands of researchers, we previously built an interactive online platform at predictingthepast.com and fully open-sourced our underlying models.<br>Community collaboration has highlighted three main challenges for AI-assisted historical analysis. First, preserving explainable, flexible interpretations requires tailored visualizations for individual inscriptions. Second, advanced multi-text analysis must move beyond basic comparisons without requiring specialized coding. Finally, large language models must be firmly grounded in evidence and expertise to remain reliable.<br>To overcome these barriers, the Predicting the Past Skill for Google Antigravity shifts these complex computational workflows into natural language. By grounding Gemini directly in the specialized outputs of Aeneas and Ithaca, we have created an interactive partner that allows historians to attribute, restore, and analyze ancient texts as naturally as having a conversation with a colleague.<br>To demonstrate the practical power of this collaborative approach, we worked closely with Dr. Thea Sommerschield, a historian and epigrapher at Durham University, who has co-led all projects in this domain. Together we put the system to work across three distinct, real-world case studies that span the Greco-Roman worlds, show how researchers can now perform large-scale, interactive, and visually rich epigraphic analyses.
Case study<br>The ring thief of Aquae Sulis (Tab.Sulis 97)
To examine how the system handles formally and stylistically distinctive language, and how it supports explainability, we deployed the model to attribute and analyze a Latin curse tablet (defixio) from Roman Britain, recovered from a votive deposit at the hot-spring sanctuary of Minerva at Bath (Aquae Sulis). The inscription was written by a woman named Basilia, cursing whoever had stolen her silver ring. Hundreds of similar curse tablets have been found at the site, making Bath one of the richest sources of this distinctive epigraphic genre.
Curse tablet with complaint about the theft of Vilbia. Photograph by Mike Peel.
In this case, Aeneas places the inscription within the chronological and geographical ranges proposed by historians, while providing a transparent account of how that conclusion was reached. More interestingly, the explanation it produces begins to resemble a piece of epigraphic commentary in its own right: an interpretation of the textual features that underpin historical attribution.
Case study<br>Mapping the cult of the Aufaniae (CIL XIII, 6665)
Reconstructing damaged text and analyzing regional patterns across a wider corpus can be demonstrated through the example of a votive altar from Mainz (Mogontiacum), dedicated in 211 CE by the provincial official (beneficiarius consularis) Lucius Maiorius Cogitatus. The inscription honours a group of Germanic mother-goddesses, the Aufaniae. Many similar dedications are known from the Rhine and Danube provinces, often set up by Roman soldiers and administrators. Although these inscriptions are highly formulaic, small differences in their wording can reveal regional traditions and patterns of mobility across the Empire.
Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften/Epigraphische Datenbank Heidelberg: © AG-OS Fremdfoto
In this example, the Skill moves beyond the analysis of a single inscription, while remaining grounded in evidence that historians can inspect and verify. It identifies patterns across an entire corpus and traces how religious practices travelled through the movement of people across the Roman Empire.
Case study<br>Who came to Dodona?
Processing bulk collections of fragmentary inscriptions and mapping high-dimensional semantic relationships using the skill is illustrated through the lead oracular tablets of Dodona in northwest Greece. Like Delphi, Dodona attracted visitors from...