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AntCom

From Antiquity to Community: Rethinking classical Heritage through Citizen Humanities

The AntCom project has received funding from Horizon Europe Program for Research and Innovation under the action Horizon MSCA Doctoral Network, Grant Agreement No. 101073543

23/08/2026

AntCom is on the move! We will be present at the 25th International Congress of Byzantine Studies "Byzantium beyond Byzantium" held Vienna with a round table convened by Francesco Giannachi and Aglae Pizzone. No less than four of our Ants will be presenting next Saturday. Check out the program ! https://www.icbs2026.org/program/

19/08/2026

🎨 Citizen Science Research Spotlight #9

Can we still read emotions in artworks created centuries ago?

This spotlight explores Emotional Captioning, a project that invited museum visitors to interpret gestures, facial expressions, and other visual cues in historical artworks. By co-creating emotion-focused captions, participants helped investigate how emotions are recognised across time and how cultural conventions shape the way we understand visual heritage.

Curious to learn more? Read the full story and access the poster in PDF format here:
🔗 https://antcom.eu/2026/08/19/citizen-science-project-spotlight-9-emotional-captioning/

19/08/2026

Two weeks, countless conversations, and many new perspectives later, our Summer School, Classics Today: Decentering and Digitalization, has come to an end.

Together, we explored some of the key questions facing Classical Studies today, from canon formation, class, race, and gender to digital heritage, AI, and Citizen Humanities. Through lectures, workshops, discussions, lab visits, and project work, participants developed innovative ideas for engaging communities with the ancient world.

More importantly, we built our own small community. Over the course of two weeks, we discussed our discipline, its present challenges, and its future possibilities, moving from moments of epistemic shock to the joy of sharing, questioning, and co-creating knowledge.

🙏 We are grateful to all our participants, to our Ants PhDs who acted as wonderful facilitators, and to the keynote speakers who helped make this summer school such a special experience.
Thank you for two inspiring weeks of reimagining and decentering the Classics.

18/08/2026

Citizen Science Research Spotlight #8

How can local memories help us uncover traces of the medieval past?

This spotlight explores the worship of the female martyrs Mariña and Thecla in Galicia, Spain. Working closely with local communities, the project investigates how stories, rituals, and oral traditions have been preserved across generations, offering new insights into the ways medieval heritage continues to shape identities and cultural memory today.

Read more about the project and access the full poster in our latest blog post:
🔗 https://antcom.eu/2026/08/18/citizen-science-project-spotlight-8-seeking-a-medieval-pattern-in-oral-tradition/

17/08/2026

🏛️ Citizen Science Research Spotlight #7

What stories, memories, and meanings do local communities associate with a UNESCO World Heritage Site?

This spotlight features a participatory mapping project at the Tower of Hercules in A Coruña, Spain. By inviting residents to share places, memories, and personal connections linked to the lighthouse and its surrounding landscape, the project reveals how heritage is shaped not only by monuments, but also by lived experiences, collective memory, and community perspectives.

Discover the project in our latest blog post, where you can also access the full poster in PDF format:
🔗 https://antcom.eu/2026/08/17/citizen-science-project-spotlight-7-participatory-mapping-at-the-unesco-listed-tower-of-hercules/

15/08/2026

Day 10 of our Summer School, Classics Today: Decentering and Digitalization, was presentation day!

After two weeks of learning, discussing, and designing, participants presented their Citizen Humanities projects, showcasing creative ways of bringing Greco-Roman heritage into dialogue with contemporary communities.

The ideas were as diverse as they were inspiring: from bullet journaling inspired by Aristotelian ideas of happiness to treasure hunts centered on Roman inscriptions and Basilian rock churches; from involving vulnerable communities in the cleaning and sorting of ancient pottery to tagging ancient tragedy through the lens of attachment theory; from active learning through oral performances of Homer to data mining library records to inform public policies on Classics; from collaborative manuscript transcription initiatives to many other innovative approaches to public engagement.

💡 It was a joy to see how the projects had developed since the first pitches at the end of Week 1. The presentations reflected not only creativity and critical thinking, but also a shared commitment to making classical heritage more accessible, participatory, and meaningful.

Congratulations to all participants on their hard work and inspiring presentations!

14/08/2026

Day 9 of our Summer School, Classics Today: Decentering and Digitalization, explored how digital technologies are helping us rediscover the colours of antiquity.

In her lecture, Irina Ciortan challenged the enduring myth of a white antiquity, demonstrating how scientific analysis and digital reconstruction can reveal the vibrant colours that once adorned ancient artworks. Through examples from the PERCEIVE project, participants discovered how traces of pigments can be recovered and visualized, opening new perspectives on the ancient world and on modern ideals of beauty.

As the summer school approaches its conclusion, the afternoon was dedicated to final project preparations. We also heard from our first brave volunteers, Chiara Scabari, Chiara Pallanch, and Monica Warwick, who presented ideas for engaging communities with ancient heritage, from Scotland to the Aeolian Islands.

🎨 A thought-provoking final lecture and an inspiring glimpse of the creative projects taking shape across the summer school!

14/08/2026

Citizen Science Research Spotlights #5 & #6

How can citizen science help preserve a minority language and the stories it carries?

This spotlight features two complementary projects exploring Griko, a Greek-derived minority language spoken in Southern Italy and beyond. By working with local communities and diaspora speakers, the projects document oral traditions, collect new language data, and help safeguard a rich linguistic and cultural heritage for future generations.

Check our latest blog posts to read more about the projects:
🔗 https://antcom.eu/2026/08/14/citizen-science-project-spotlight-5-folklore-texts-in-griko/
🔗 https://antcom.eu/2026/08/14/citizen-science-project-spotlight-6-griko-in-the-diaspora/

13/08/2026

Days 7 & 8 of our Summer School Classics Today: Decentering and Digitalization were dedicated to exploring the opportunities and challenges that AI and computational methods bring to the study of antiquity.

Across two thought-provoking days, participants engaged with some of the questions that are rapidly reshaping the humanities:
🤖 What has AI done to us and to our practice as students of antiquity and what can we do with it?
🤖 What can AI contribute to the study of ancient texts?
🤖 Can AI help us detect and analyze emotions in texts from distant linguistic and cultural worlds?
🤖 Can it ever become a proxy for the philologist?

On Day 7, participants were introduced to Logion, an innovative NLP tool designed to support the restoration and interpretation of premodern Greek texts, before joining a stimulating discussion on what it means to remain human, and humane, in the age of artificial intelligence, led by Barbara Graziosi (Princeton University).

Day 8 shifted the focus to emotion theory and computational sentiment analysis, with Eric Cullhed (Uppsala University) guiding participants through the opportunities and limitations of using digital tools to study affectivity in ancient texts. Through discussions and hands-on testing, students explored how computational methods can complement, but not replace, humanistic interpretation.

💡 While we may not yet have definitive answers to these questions, these two days helped us advance the conversation and critically reflect on how new technologies are transforming both classical scholarship and our relationship with the past.

12/08/2026

📜 Citizen Science Research Spotlight #4

Can high school students help recover texts hidden for centuries beneath medieval manuscripts?

This spotlight features Virgilio Invisibile a Verona, a project that invited students to work with multispectral images of a remarkable palimpsest containing fragments of the ancient Roman poet Virgil. Through training in manuscript studies and collaborative transcription, participants helped uncover and preserve texts that would otherwise remain difficult to access.

Learn more about this unique citizen science initiative in our latest blog post. The full poster is also available in PDF format if you'd like to explore the project in greater detail:

🔗 https://antcom.eu/2026/08/12/citizen-science-project-spotlight-4-virgilio-invisibile-a-verona/

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