Hymn to Babylon discovered using AI

Researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) have rediscovered a hymn of praise to Babylon, believed lost for a millennium. The text, dating from around 1000 BCE, was found through a collaboration with the University of Baghdad. LMU Professor Enrique Jiménez utilized artificial intelligence (AI) to identify 30 additional manuscripts that helped complete the text's missing sections.

The hymn describes the majesty of Babylon and offers insights into the lives of its inhabitants, both male and female. Babylon, founded around 2000 BCE in Mesopotamia, was once the largest city in the world and a significant cultural hub. The rediscovered text adds substantially to known Mesopotamian literature, providing new perspectives on urban life and depictions of nature.

Jiménez is digitizing cuneiform text fragments collected worldwide onto LMU's "Electronic Babylonian Library Platform." The AI-supported approach allowed researchers to accelerate the process of identifying and connecting related texts, a task that would have previously taken decades. This enabled a full decipherment of the hymn.

The discovery and the text's extent suggest it was a widely known work during its time. "Children copied the hymn at school," stated Professor Jiménez. "It is unusual that such a popular text was unknown to us until now." The hymn offers valuable information about the roles of women in Babylonian society and the inhabitants' interactions with foreigners.

The discovered text has been published in the journal IRAQ. This research is part of a broader effort to digitize and understand ancient Mesopotamian texts.