the missing parts of ancient Roman inscriptions. A new AI tool, named Aeneas after a hero from Greek and Roman mythology, analyses thousands of Latin inscriptions to predict lost text—and can even suggest when and where an inscription was written.

“[Aeneas is] the first AI model designed to contextualise ancient inscriptions,” says Thea Sommerschield of the University of Nottingham in the UK, who worked with the tech company Google DeepMind on the project. “Aeneas helps historians interpret, attribute, and restore fragmentary Latin texts.”

Around 1,500 Latin inscriptions are discovered each year—on buildings, ancient artefacts and more—but these are often incomplete due to damage, such as breakage or erosion. Experts use their specialist knowledge to search for similar inscriptions to help reconstruct these lost words and sentences, but this can take a long time and involves the analysis of hundreds of texts.