Philologists and epigraphers
historical languages, scripts and manuscripts: medieval Arabic and Persian, Classical Chinese, Sanskrit, Ge'ez, cuneiform, Meroitic and others
Much of the evidence lies in manuscripts, inscriptions and early printed texts whose languages, scripts and conventions take specialist training to read: medieval Arabic and Persian manuscripts, Classical Chinese, Sanskrit, Ge'ez, cuneiform, Meroitic and more. Philologists and epigraphers are needed to read, edit and check these sources, including whatever AI tools extract from them.
18 problems need philologists and epigraphers
- 01When was Beowulf composed?
Annotate Old English poems and dated prose for metrical, morphological and orthographic features, marking which are authorial and which scribal, using the Dictionary of Old English Corpus.
Chronology · Europe · 680–1020also needs computational linguists - 02How, if at all, did Copernicus learn of the Maragha-school planetary models?
Census every manuscript carrying the Ṭūsī couple or an Ibn al-Shāṭir-type model in any language, recording which device variant each witness carries and its date.
Science & knowledge · Europe · 1250–1543also needs archivists - 03What new evidence can fix when and why five historically extinct species disappeared?
Decide from Dutch, Danish, Icelandic and eighteenth-century Russian usage which animal each name in the late records denotes, starting with the 1680s Mauritian 'dodaersen'.
Chronology · Global · 1500–1945also needs archivists, geneticists, data scientists, archaeologists, computational linguists and GIS specialists - 04Which lost works of Galen survive unrecognised in Arabic and Syriac?
Match Galen-attributed passages in al-Hawi, Ibn Abi Usaybi'a and Maimonides to works lost in Greek, using Galen's and Hunayn's descriptions of their contents.
Texts & authorship · Middle East · 160–1270also needs archivists and computational linguists - 05Did Gregorian chant descend from Old Roman chant, or did both come from a common ancestor?
Classify the psalter and biblical text variants in shared chant texts as Roman, Gallican or Vulgate forms, as independent evidence for which repertory kept the older wording.
Texts & authorship · Europe · 680–1250also needs musicologists and data scientists - 06By what route did knowledge of gunpowder reach Latin Europe in the thirteenth century?
Transcribe and collate dated gunpowder and saltpetre recipes in Chinese, Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Latin, recording the attested senses of terms such as bārūd and sal petrosum.
Science & knowledge · Global · 1040–1350also needs archivists - 07Which of the journeys in Ibn Baṭṭūṭa's Riḥla did he actually make?
Collate the Paris manuscripts, starting with BnF Arabe 2291, against the Defrémery–Sanguinetti text, and mark which passages Ibn Juzayy signals as his own additions or quotations.
Texts & authorship · Global · 1325–1355also needs computational linguists and GIS specialists - 08Did anyone write down the Aceh tsunamis of c. 1394 and c. 1450?
Search the Ming Shilu, Ma Huan, Fei Xin, Gong Zhen and the Malay chronicles for sea floods or abandoned towns, and record every passage and edition examined.
Chronology · Indian Ocean · 1390–1460also needs geoscientists - 09Did Kerala-school infinite series reach early modern Europe through Jesuit missionaries?
Survey Kerala astronomical manuscripts at the Oriental Research Institute and the Royal Asiatic Society for ownership marks, copying notes or Latin and Portuguese annotations showing European hands.
Science & knowledge · South Asia · 1350–1700also needs archivists - 10What language does Linear A record, and can any proposed family beat chance?
Build a single concordance of GORILA, its 2025 supplement, SigLA and lineara.xyz, encoding Linear B sound values in tiers from palaeographically secure to assumed.
Languages & scripts · Mediterranean · 1800–1450 BCEalso needs computational linguists - 11Can the Meroitic language be translated beyond its funerary formulae?
Compile a graded glossary of recurring words outside the funerary formulae, separating secure, probable and conjectural meanings, and test translation hypotheses drawn from Old Nubian against the Hamadab stela.
Languages & scripts · Africa · 300 BCE–450 CEalso needs archaeologists and archivists - 12What texts did Newton copy in the alchemical manuscripts whose sources are unidentified?
Collate Keynes MSS 31, 44 and 58 against candidate Latin, English, German and Dutch witnesses, recording shared errors, omissions and ordering rather than shared procedures.
Texts & authorship · Europe · 1660–1700also needs archivists, computational linguists and conservation scientists - 13What do the thousands of unread Shang oracle-bone graphs mean?
For each candidate graph, compile every attestation by diviner group with its bronze and Warring States descendants, and fix proposed readings in writing before they are tested.
Languages & scripts · East Asia · 1250–1046 BCEalso needs computational linguists and archivists - 14Does Proto-Elamite record language, and is it the ancestor of Linear Elamite?
Test the claimed relation to Linear Elamite with pre-registered sign-form and value correspondences scored against shuffled pairings, using the CDLI transliterations and images.
Languages & scripts · Middle East · 3300–1880 BCEalso needs computational linguists - 15When was the consonantal text of the Qurʾān standardized?
Align early manuscript transcriptions from Corpus Coranicum verse by verse, coding each difference as orthographic, consonantal or verse division, and test single-archetype and fluid-text stemmata.
Texts & authorship · Middle East · 632–750also needs archaeologists and conservation scientists - 16Were Moses Shapira's Deuteronomy fragments an ancient text or an 1880s forgery?
Classify every orthographic, palaeographic and textual feature of the transcriptions as attested in sources available by 1883 or only in later material such as Qumran Deuteronomy manuscripts.
Texts & authorship · Middle East · 1878–1885also needs archivists and conservation scientists - 17Who supplied the medical knowledge that Hans Sloane's catalogues attribute to unnamed people?
Identify the languages and likely regions behind vernacular drug names in anonymous entries, from Portuguese, Persian, South Indian and Chinese lists, to narrow where each supplier worked.
Science & knowledge · Global · 1680–1753also needs archivists, computational linguists and data scientists - 18In what year did the Zhou conquer the Shang?
Compile the Western Zhou bronze date formulas into a machine-readable corpus, and set out where the current and ancient Bamboo Annals texts disagree on reign counts.
Chronology · East Asia · 1130–1018 BCEalso needs astronomers and archaeologists
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Drafted by Claude Opus 5.5