5 ms·

Why can't we scan and use OCR with machine learning to automatically translate those clay tablets?

by brador 10y ago

rangibaby 10y ago
The same reason that doesn't work for (insert language here). Especially considering that there will be wildly varying scripts and styles of writing.
- tacon 10y ago
  Ok, how about machine vision plus Mechanical Turk or reCAPTCHA, with the human helping with difficult symbols? Apparently we already have a training set of the translated tablets.
  - flukus 10y ago
    I read about a group doing this recently actually. The specifically avoided teach people the language so that they could just translate what the saw and not read in context that wasn't there.
    - mattlondon 10y ago
      Just transcribing the tablets into some sort of digital format would probably be a good step (and be a useful corpus for archival purposes if/when they accidentally/deliberately get lost or destroyed, e.g. syria)
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
BurningFrog 10y ago
I doubt you can throw them in a scanner, but digital photos should be doable. Once it's digital, you can let the internet devour it, one way or another. Shouldn't take long.
computator 10y ago
> Why can't we scan and use OCR those clay tablets? Possibly for the same reason you can't scan 88-year-old images of Mickey Mouse without being sued by Disney. The academics who control things like that are protective with their finds (even if they didn't find it, but got control). The Dead Sea Scrolls weren't published for decades because the scholars who got to them first wouldn't let anyone else see them[1]; they got published only after the government intervened. One scholar even sued[2] another over copyright infringement for publishing the words he painstakingly copied off the scrolls; the guy he sued had merely copied his copy of the 2000-year-old words. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls#Publication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls#Publication [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls#Ownership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls#Ownership
- gilleain 10y ago
  This is all very true, however even if they _did_ want to scan them, it's not just like scanning a bunch of papers. I sat next to a guy working on the Genizah project (https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/genizah https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/genizah) and saw a tiny bit of the difficulties in doing something similar. - Presumably these clay tablets have to be handled carefully when scanned - These scans would ideally be high-resolution, requiring specialist equipment (I guess the BM has such equipment, but other institutions?) - Once scanned, the images have to be stored somewhere (for how long?) with backups, etc - To serve up the images to interested scholars, there has to be a system in place (over the web; is there authentication?; is it free?) - Collaborating with other institutions who have done the same... So lawsuits are only one of the problems with "just" scanning and OCR-ing. Still possible, of course.
  - coldpie 10y ago
    Tangentially related, but people who are interested in digitally archiving ancient materials might enjoy reading this article from one of my favorite blogs: https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/12/18/x-rays-expose-a-hidden-medieval-library/ https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/12/18/x-rays-expose-a-hidden-m...
- 10y ago

Why can't we scan and use OCR with machine learning to automatically translate those clay tablets?

by brador 10y ago

Why can't we scan and use OCR with machine learning to automatically translate those clay tablets?

The same reason that doesn't work for (insert language here). Especially considering that there will be wildly varying scripts and styles of writing.

tacon 10y ago
Ok, how about machine vision plus Mechanical Turk or reCAPTCHA, with the human helping with difficult symbols? Apparently we already have a training set of the translated tablets.
- flukus 10y ago
  I read about a group doing this recently actually. The specifically avoided teach people the language so that they could just translate what the saw and not read in context that wasn't there.
  - mattlondon 10y ago
    Just transcribing the tablets into some sort of digital format would probably be a good step (and be a useful corpus for archival purposes if/when they accidentally/deliberately get lost or destroyed, e.g. syria)

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

BurningFrog 10y ago

I doubt you can throw them in a scanner, but digital photos should be doable. Once it's digital, you can let the internet devour it, one way or another. Shouldn't take long.

computator 10y ago

> Why can't we scan and use OCR those clay tablets? Possibly for the same reason you can't scan 88-year-old images of Mickey Mouse without being sued by Disney. The academics who control things like that are protective with their finds (even if they didn't find it, but got control). The Dead Sea Scrolls weren't published for decades because the scholars who got to them first wouldn't let anyone else see them[1]; they got published only after the government intervened. One scholar even sued[2] another over copyright infringement for publishing the words he painstakingly copied off the scrolls; the guy he sued had merely copied his copy of the 2000-year-old words. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls#Publication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls#Publication [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls#Ownership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls#Ownership

gilleain 10y ago
This is all very true, however even if they _did_ want to scan them, it's not just like scanning a bunch of papers. I sat next to a guy working on the Genizah project (https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/genizah https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/genizah) and saw a tiny bit of the difficulties in doing something similar. - Presumably these clay tablets have to be handled carefully when scanned - These scans would ideally be high-resolution, requiring specialist equipment (I guess the BM has such equipment, but other institutions?) - Once scanned, the images have to be stored somewhere (for how long?) with backups, etc - To serve up the images to interested scholars, there has to be a system in place (over the web; is there authentication?; is it free?) - Collaborating with other institutions who have done the same... So lawsuits are only one of the problems with "just" scanning and OCR-ing. Still possible, of course.
- coldpie 10y ago
  Tangentially related, but people who are interested in digitally archiving ancient materials might enjoy reading this article from one of my favorite blogs: https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/12/18/x-rays-expose-a-hidden-medieval-library/ https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/12/18/x-rays-expose-a-hidden-m...
10y ago