We are excited to announce that the second Digital Ancient Near Eastern Studies conference (#DANES24) will take place as a virtual event on 5-6 December 2024 during the afternoon hours CET.
This year’s theme is “Digital Resources of the Ancient Near East: Creation, Application Studies, and Maintenance”. We particularly invite talks about using and expanding digital datasets and databases related to the ancient Near East, as well as talks on the creation, maintenance, and development of such resources.
The DANES conferences series is one of several activities of the DANES network, whose purpose is to establish and maintain a community of practitioners of digital and computational methods for the study of the ancient world.
The exploration of texts and artifacts as data using the plethora of computational tools and techniques available today requires additional training outside one’s area of expertise. This interdisciplinary approach has been growing rapidly in recent years and developing its own best practice standards and conventions that require familiarization with several fields of study.
The purpose of the DANES conferences is to highlight recent work that bridges these diverse fields, showcasing current best practice, informing the community about ongoing research among its members, and introducing more students and scholars of the ancient world to innovative approaches made possible with current technological developments.
In particular, this year’s theme is intended to showcase the research that is only possible when sources are made available digitally and as openly as possible. It also aims to highlight the increasing amount of work our community does in creating and maintaining resources and tools.
Registration is open through Eventbrite! Registration is closed!
All hours are shown in Central European Time.
For more detailed information on the talks, posters, and workshops, see the conference’s Book of Abstracts which is published on Zenodo. It can be cited as follows:
Romach, Avital and Zadworny, Piotr (eds.) 2024. DANES 2024: Book of Abstracts. Zenodo. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.14312736.
Workshops are 90-minute sessions that provide active tutorials or in depth discussions with participants about emerging technologies and their applications for ancient Near Eastern studies.
| 3:00pm-4:30pm | Fine-Tuning LLMs for Ancient Language Processing
Shai Gordin and Emma Yavaşan (Digital Pasts Lab, Ariel University) |
This hands-on workshop explores how Large Language Models (LLMs) can be applied to analyze ancient languages with limited available data, using Hittite as the primary case study. Participants will learn the practical aspects of fine-tuning LLMs for tasks like glossing (linguistic analysis) of Hittite texts, including how to prepare datasets and evaluate model performance when working with complex ancient languages. The workshop balances theoretical understanding with practical application, teaching attendees how to adapt these modern AI tools for analyzing ancient languages while addressing the unique challenges of working with limited historical data and complex grammatical structures. The knowledge gained will be applicable not only to Hittite but also to other ancient languages, making this workshop valuable for scholars working across different historical linguistic traditions.
| 5:00pm-6:30pm | Towards (Semi-)automatic Annotation of Cuneiform Signs
Jan Philipp Bullenkamp (Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg) and Timo Homburg (Mainz University) |
We will start with a talk on advances in the assisted annotation of media, e.g. renderings and 3D models containing cuneiform signs. At first we present an extension of the Gigamesh Software Framework which is able to load 2D-created annotations of rendering images and to export them as 3D annotations as well as create 3D annotations directly on the mesh. Further we discuss how 3D annotations might be stored in an interoperable exchange format and highlight ongoing discussions of the NFDI4Objects standardization group for 3D annotations. This will help the audience to gain an insight on future interoperability of annotation formats in different 3D processing software.
The second part of our talk will feature a watershed-based approach for cuneiform wedge detection and classification according to the wedge types in PaleoCodage. We evaluate its success rate, its compatibility with and applicability in the workflow of a computer scientist and its benefits to Near Eastern studies. Afterwards we will demonstrate use cases for both aforementioned technologies. We then want to discuss the applicability and feasibility in an annotation workflow for Near Eastern scholars together with the participants.
| 7:00pm-8:30pm | Building The FactGrid Cuneiform Project: How to Make a Knowledge Graph for Cuneiform Studies
Adam Anderson (UC Berkeley) |
FactGrid is a free, open-source Knowledge Graph database built on Wikibase technology that allows historians worldwide to collaboratively build and edit customizable databases. While Knowledge Graphs (KGs) have a learning curve, they offer deep, domain-specific data curated by specialists, making them valuable complements to Large Language Models (LLMs), which often suffer from hallucinations due to their reliance on broad, unreliable online data.
This workshop aims to teach participants how to build a Knowledge Graph database for cuneiform texts, covering everything from Wikibase setup to integrating various online databases and implementing linguistic annotations. The ultimate goal is to develop a comprehensive model that can query these knowledge bases using natural language, incorporating Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) for SPARQL queries and deep learning models for multilingual word sense disambiguation for ancient languages written in the cuneiform script.
| 4:00pm-4:10pm | Opening Remarks: Hubert Mara, FU Berlin |
| Keynote Session
Moderator: Eliese-Sophia Lincke, FU Berlin |
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| 4:10pm-5:00pm | Digital Resources for Coptic – 12 Years of Coptic Scriptorium
Caroline T. Schroeder (University of Oklahoma) and Amir Zeldes (Georgetown University) |
| Long Talks | Databases and Infrastructure
Moderator: Marine Béranger, FU Berlin |
| 5:15pm-5:45pm | ARCHIBAB 2.0: A New Website for Archival Documents from the Old Babylonian Period!
Christian Gaubert (CNRS) and Antoine Jacquet (Collège de France) |
| 5:45pm-6:15pm | Creating Digital Datasets from Legacy Records: The Example of the ELAMortuary Burial Database
Yasmina Wicks (University of Naples "L'Orientale") |
| 6:15pm-6:45pm | Archaeology Information Modeling - Conceptualization and Pilot Study of BIM-Based 4D Excavation Database Systems
Bjarne Kortmann (BerGSAS/FU Berlin) |
| Short Talks | Computational Archaeology
Moderator: Hubert Mara, FU Berlin |
| 7:00pm-7:20pm | XRONOS as a Resource for Archaeological Chronology in West Asia
Joe Roe and Martin Hinz (University of Bern) |
| 7:20pm-7:40pm | Publishing and Sharing Photogrammetry Models in Archaeology
Michael Eisenberg (University of Haifa) |
| 7:40pm-8:00pm | The Corpus of Stamp Seals from the Southern Levant
Ben Greet (The University of Zurich) |
| 8:00pm-8:20pm | Spatial Data Recovery and Mapping of Survey Data for the Negev Casemate Sites in the Negev Highlands, Israel, from the 10th century BCE
Jan Jackson (Pennsylvania State University) |
| 4:00pm-4:50pm | Poster Session
Moderator: Avital Romach, Yale University |
| This session will commence with five minute lightning talks by each of the presenters, followed by breakout rooms where the audience can ask the presenters questions about their posters and hold discussions. | |
| DEMCC - The First Online Cuneiform Texts Database in China
Changyu Liu (Zhejiang Normal University), Qier Zhang (Zhejiang Normal University), Jing Tan (Xingzhi College Zhejiang Normal University), Muzhe Han (Jiangsu University), and Émilie Pagé-Perron (University of York) |
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| Developing an OCR - Wikibase Pipeline for Place Names in the RGTC Series
Matthew Ong (University of Helsinki) |
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| Modeling Network Connections of the Settlements from the Cuneiform Map CBS 10434
Marina Redina-Thomas (Cornell University) |
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| Still GLoWing: Developing Synergies in the Assembly and Development of Sustainable Open Access Data in Cuneiform Studies
Rune Rattenborg (Uppsala University) *not presenting during the conference |
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| The SIANE Device: Advancing Digital Documentation of Ancient Near Eastern Cylinder Seals
Lara Bampfield (Oxford University), David Young (University of Southampton) |
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| Use of Relational Databases for Medium Sized Corpus Study: Case Studies of Old Babylonian Nippur and Ur (2016-1841 BCE)
Andrew Deloucas (Harvard University) |
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| Long Talks | Ancient Language Processing
Moderator: Shai Gordin, Digital Pasts Lab, Ariel University |
| 5:00pm-5:30pm | Tracing Translation's Footprints: A Stylometric Analysis of Ancient Greek and Coptic Texts
Noam Bar David (Bar Ilan University), So Miyagawa (The University of Tsukuba), and Eliese-Sophia Lincke (FU Berlin) |
| 5:30pm-6:00pm | Reassessing the Paradigm of Syriac Hellenization in Late Antiquity: A Computational-Quantitative Analysis of Greek Words in Syriac Literature
Noam Maeir (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) |
| 6:00pm-6:30pm | Constructing a Knowledge Graph Lexicon for Sumerian: Methodology, Collaboration, and Integration into Wikidata's Linked Open Data Framework
Timo Homburg (Mainz University) and Adam Anderson (UC Berkeley) |
| Short Talks | Linked Data and Networks
Moderator: Adam Anderson, UC Berkeley |
| 6:40pm-7:00pm | SemitiLEX: A Prototype Online Etymological Dictionary and Annotated Text Collection
Na'ama Pat-El, Danny Law, and Todd Krause (University of Texas, Austin) |
| 7:00pm-7:20pm | Musical Instruments in Ancient Mesopotamia (MIAM): A Semantic Media Wiki Database and Lexicon
Dahlia Shehata and Benedetta Bellucci (University of Würzburg) |
| 7:20pm-7:40pm | Comparing Knowledge Organization Networks
Haleli Harel (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) |
| 7:40pm-8:00pm | The Long History of Using Computational Methods in the Humanities. The Example of Peter Damerow
Christian Schröter (geb. Vater; Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur | Mainz - Digitale Akademie) |
| 8:00pm-8:10pm | Closing Remarks: Shai Gordin, Digital Pasts Lab, Ariel University |
For any questions, please contact the conference organizers:
On behalf of the OpenDANES board members: