University of Crete

TALOS Laboratory

Advancing Artificial Intelligence
in the Humanities & Social Sciences

TALOS envisions a future in which Artificial Intelligence strengthens, without replacing, human interpretation in the Social Sciences and Humanities.

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TALOS Laboratory is an interdisciplinary research unit of the University of Crete.

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Research Areas

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Our research begins with questions about language, culture, knowledge and society, and brings computational methods into conversation with humanistic inquiry. Across disciplines, we study how knowledge is created, represented, interpreted and preserved.

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Knowledge Representation

Ontologies, knowledge graphs and semantic technologies for expressing complex cultural and scholarly knowledge.

Digital Humanities

Digital methods for studying texts, histories, cultural collections and the questions that connect them.

Language Technologies

Natural language processing and computational linguistics for historical, modern and culturally significant language.

Cultural Heritage Informatics

Methods for preserving, connecting and interpreting cultural heritage through structured and linked digital knowledge.

AI for Society

Responsible and explainable artificial intelligence examined in relation to people, institutions and social life.

Data Science & AI

Machine learning, reasoning and intelligent systems developed for interdisciplinary research and discovery.

Where research begins

Historical sources, cultural objects and emerging questions.

Vanitas Still Life by Edwaert Collier, 1662 — Knowledge, time, and memory

Perspective View with a Woman Reading a Letter by Samuel van Hoogstraten — Reading, space, and interpretation

Landscape with Figures (Les Bohémiens) by Camille Corot, 1872 — Writing, interpretation, and time

The Deluge, a stained-glass window by Valentin Bousch, 1531

Greek Vase-Painting, a wall-decoration design by Anton von Werner, 1868

The Veteran in a New Field by Winslow Homer, 1865 — Memory, society, and renewal

Victory, a gilded bronze sculpture by Augustus Saint-Gaudens — Victory: form, symbol, and memory

Silver medal for the Association for the Encouragement of Greek Studies

Research question

What connections become visible when texts, people, places and events are represented as linked knowledge?

The archive is not silent. It is waiting for the right question.

Selected Projects

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Sixteenth-century woodcut map of Crete, historically called Candia

Horizon Europe · ERA Chairs

TALOS AI4SSH

TALOS is a leading European project that places ethical artificial intelligence and digital technology at the center of the humanities and social sciences.

2023 - 2028 Learn more

Historical engraving of the ancient Greek writer Diogenes Laertius

Knowledge graph

PhiloGraphia

Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of the Eminent Philosophers represented as a knowledge graph through the SemeiaCarta platform.

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Visualisation of entities and relationships in a TALOS cultural knowledge graph

Open data

Open Datasets

Ontologies and ontoterminologies published as reusable scholarly resources with persistent identifiers.

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Guillaume de Nautonier’s 1603 world map plotting the geomagnetic equator

Research network

Collaborations

Partnerships connecting TALOS with researchers and institutions across Europe and beyond.

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Research Infrastructure & Tools

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TediOntoterminology editor OTV ViewerConcept hierarchies Knowledge Graph EditorBuild graphs by hand RDF Graph ViewerWeb edition RDF Graph ViewerDesktop edition SPARQL EndpointQuery the datasets Text AnalyzerGreek corpus analysis

How cultural knowledge connects

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Explore how cultural knowledge connects

Explore a knowledge graph. Hover over an image to reveal its relationships. Objects become more meaningful when they are connected to the people, places, periods and stories that surround them.

The archaeological site of Knossos on the island of Crete — **Crete**
Place connecting objects, histories and myths

Cretan terracotta Hadra hydria from the late third century BCE — **Hadra hydria**
Cretan · late 3rd century BCE

Detail of the inscription naming Apollonios on the Hadra hydria — **Painted decoration**
Detail from the Hadra hydria

Historical map or view of Alexandria in Egypt — **Alexandria**
Probable burial place of Apollonios

Ancient flint arrowhead associated with Crete — **Flint arrowhead**
Cretan archaeological object

Hellenistic silver coin from Crete — **Silver coin**
Hellenistic Crete · 2nd–1st century BCE

Wine jug depicting Europa being carried to Crete by Zeus — **Europa and Zeus**
A later representation of the myth of Crete

Technology connecting researchers.

TALOS brings together researchers from computer science, the humanities and the social sciences. Our work uses advanced digital methods without losing sight of the historical, linguistic and human contexts that give knowledge meaning.

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