Elias Petrou: From Photostats to AI: The Digital Revolution of Greek Texts

Elias Petrou, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

The digitization of Greek texts has been a complex and evolving endeavor, shaped by technological advancements and scholarly efforts over the past century. The challenges posed by
the Greek script—its non-Latin alphabet, diacritical system, and linguistic complexity—initially hindered large-scale digital preservation. However, a series of pioneering initiatives, many of
them based at American universities, laid the groundwork for the field of digital humanities and transformed access to Greek literary heritage.
This presentation traces key milestones in the history of Greek text digitization, beginning with early efforts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the early 20th century. At a time when digital technologies were nonexistent, classicists at Illinois utilized the photostat machine to create facsimiles of rare Greek manuscripts from European collections, facilitating their study and preservation. The talk then examines the groundbreaking Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) project at the University of California—Irvine, which in the 1970s introduced computational methods for processing and analyzing ancient Greek texts. This initiative marked a turning point, enabling the systematic digitization and searchable indexing of Greek literature. Building on these early efforts, the presentation explores the development of large-scale digital repositories, including HathiTrust, which now provides scholars with unprecedented access to digitized Greek texts. By examining the evolution of these technologies, this talk highlights how digital tools have expanded the accessibility and study of Greek literature, ensuring its preservation for future generations while opening new avenues for research in classical studies and digital humanities.

Short Bio:
Elias Petrou is an Assistant Professor and Librarian of Classical, Medieval, and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. A historian and paleographer, his research focuses on the history and Greek literature of the Late Medieval and pre-modern periods. Before joining the University of Illinois, he served as a Lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), a Research Associate Specialist for the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) project at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), and a Researcher at the Institute of Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies at the University of Vienna.