Scientists have successfully applied artificial intelligence to uncover complex historical ciphers that have long remained unsolved, opening new possibilities for exploring archives around the world.
This is reported by Finway
- AI helps decipher ancient manuscripts, including unique medical prescriptions, diplomatic correspondence, and even personal messages.
- Thanks to cutting-edge technologies, it is now possible to reveal the contents of thousands of encrypted historical archives.
Unraveling the Mysteries of the Borg Cipher
The story of the Borg cipher is one of the most striking examples of applying artificial intelligence to solve the mysteries of the past. This 17th-century manuscript had been stored in the Vatican Library for over 400 years, remaining inaccessible for understanding due to the use of dozens of unusual symbols and the absence of a decryption key.
Thanks to machine learning algorithms, researchers were able to uncover the content of the document. It turned out that the Borg cipher contains hundreds of medical recommendations and prescriptions, including advice on treating dysentery, fever, and other common diseases of that time.
“Working with such documents resembles a detective investigation. In these cases, every symbol found helps to get closer to unraveling a long-lost world,” says Professor Beata Megyesi of Computational Linguistics at Stockholm University.
Innovative Technologies for Deciphering Historical Archives
Previously, the process of deciphering such documents could take from several months to years. For instance, French cryptologists took six months of diligent work to decode a three-page letter from Emperor Charles V, written over 500 years ago using 120 different symbols.
Today, thanks to modern artificial intelligence systems, this process is significantly accelerated. These technologies can recognize ancient handwriting, convert handwritten texts into digital format, and find patterns in complex ciphers. Such tools have already been used to analyze correspondence from the Thirty Years’ War, letters from Mary Stuart, and other historical sources.
Within the framework of the international project Descrypt, researchers are working on creating an innovative system that will allow for the automatic recognition and deciphering of ancient manuscripts without the need for manual processing. It is expected that this will open access to a vast amount of archival materials that still remain undeciphered.
Scientists are convinced that the further development of artificial intelligence technologies will help uncover the contents of thousands of historical texts and bring researchers closer to deciphering ancient writings, the significance of which is still unknown to modern science.
