Date: Tuesday June 23, 2026 - 16:30–18:00 BST = 17:30–19:00 CEST

Convenors: Elisabeth Günther (Heidelberg University), Sven Günther (Northeast Normal University, Changchun)

Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/live/o6wI0gOKn_4?si=mleUYBrtDBT6CHZY

Slides: Slides session 9

The course will introduce the students to the topic of personifications on Roman coins, both of the Republican and Imperial periods. Starting with a virtual hands-on activity on identifying personifcations on Roman coins we will discuss both the ancient and modern notion and definition of personifications and related concepts such as deities, numina etc. The second part of the course will start from the question of the degree to which AI might help us identifying and attributing such personifications on Roman coinage. Using the program "Orange Datamining" we will then apply pattern recognition in attempt to identify personifications on the coin reverses. In three experiments we will test out the widgets "Image Grid", "Confusion Matrix" and "Predictions" and discuss the potential and limits of this method.

1. Part I: Introduction to personifications on Roman coinage (with virtual hands-on activity)
2. Part II: Can AI help attributing Roman coins featuring personifcations? (with exercises)

We will show all experiments on our own computer and share the screen. Besides this, students are invited to try out the program on their own computers during the workshop. "Orange Datamining" is ready for download (for free), the "Image Analytics" widgets must be downloaded in a second step as an add-on. Elisabeth's paper and Youtube tutorials can serve as a manual for the students.

• Personification in Brill's New Pauly Online: https://referenceworks.brill.com/display/entries/NPOE/e915780.xml
• E. Günther, Teaching AI in Archaeology: Practising Pattern Recognition with Orange Data Mining, Journal of Ancient Civilizations 40/2 (2025), pp. 229–246. DOI: 10.16758/j.cnki.1004-9371.2025.04.022.
• Personification in ancient rhetorical discourse.

• Orange Datamining download: https://orangedatamining.com/download
• Orange Datamining tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLmNPvQr9Tf-ZSDLwOzxpvY-HrE0yv-8Fy
• Image Analytics tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu8g2Twjn9U, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvgx62a8XQk

TBA