Austrian Academy of Sciences is developing the Ancient Greek AI “Apollo” with Mistral AI and Reply

19 March 2026

Austrian Archaeological Institute Develops Custom AI Model for Hundreds of Thousands of Ancient Papyri and Inscriptions ++ Faßmann: “AI and ancient languages are not a contradiction”

The Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) is collaborating with Mistral AI and Sail Reply, a Reply Group Company,  on the development of a Large Language Model (LLM) for Ancient Greek: Apollo, named after the Greek god of light and patron of the arts and sciences, will propel research on ancient Greek texts. The model supports advanced searching and automatic text restoration in hundreds of thousands of undeciphered papyri and inscriptions, making it possible to accurately capture content in a matter of hours rather than years. The OeAW and its partners are doing pioneering work, as LLMs have not yet been developed for a historical language evolving over many centuries or the reconstruction of heavily damaged ancient texts.

Ancient language, new technology

On behalf of the OeAW, the project is led by Anna Dolganov, an ancient historian and papyrologist at the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the OeAW, who provides field–specific guidance, oversees the integration of relevant sources, and guarantees scientific quality. Through her expertise, Dolganov ensures that historical contextualization and methodological standards are upheld.

OeAW President Heinz Faßmann: “Ancient languages and artificial intelligence are not a contradiction. The collaboration between our Archaeological Institute and Mistral and Reply demonstrates how AI is advancing research in the Humanities. Apollo will support researchers toward a better understanding of often fragmentary ancient texts and thereby amplify our understanding of our shared history.”

1 million unread papyri

Anna Dolganov: “Our project with Mistral AI and Sail Reply is building the world’s first advanced multimodal Large Language Model for an ancient language, trained on the largest digital corpus of historical Greek to date. This AI system can be developed in many directions for a wide range of research tasks, from reconstructing fragmentary inscriptions and papyri to conducting semantic and thematic searches across the entire Greek textual tradition to deciphering handwritten texts. For example: there are one million Greek papyri worldwide that have never been read, tens of thousands of which are held by the Papyrus Collection of the Austrian National Library. Such treasures of historical knowledge are our target. This LLM marks the beginning of an exciting journey in the study of antiquity.”

Apollo is trained on a highly specialized corpus comprising ca. 600 million words from historical Greek texts and tens of thousands of published inscriptions and papyri. The collaboration with Mistal and Sail Reply provides a secure environment on European infrastructures and enables the full potential of generative AI to be harnessed while adhering to strict data protection and data security requirements.