Director: Prof. Dr Benedikt Hensel – Professorship of Old Testament and Biblical Archaeology

Digital Classical Studies in Oldenburg (DA:O) was founded in 2025 and, as a cross-institutional research infrastructure under the leadership of Prof. Dr Benedikt Hensel at School IV of the University of Oldenburg, brings together research, methodological transfer and externally funded projects at the intersection of (biblical) archaeology and classical studies with the digital humanities. Based in the Villa Geistreich at School IV in Oldenburg, with several research offices, the research centre develops and tests, amongst other things, 3D digitisation/photogrammetry, 2D/3D GIS, VR/AR applications, AI-supported analytical methods, geophysical prospecting and sustainable research data management (FAIR), and plans to make this infrastructure available for collaborative initiatives across schools, universities, universities of applied sciences and the wider public.

In addition to the Director, Prof. Dr Benedikt Hensel, Prof. Dr Michael Sommer and Prof. DrTorsten Jantsch share scientific responsibility for the DA:O. Dr Patrick Leiverkus serves as Deputy Director and Head of Digital Humanities Coordination; an international Advisory Board supports the work of the research centre.

The DA:O is part of the university-wide Digital Social Sciences and Humanities (DSSH) initiative and is identified within it as one of the research units and structures that structurally underpin the digital transformation of the humanities and social sciences at the University of Oldenburg. The DSSH brings together digital and AI-supported research across school boundaries with critical reflection on these methods — based on the premise that such procedures are less objective and more normative and socio-culturally embedded. Within this network, the DA:O contributes the perspective of classical studies: methodologically controllable workflows for the materiality of excavations, artefacts and written sources — and thus a use case that serves as an exemplary test of the scope and limitations of AI-supported knowledge.

→ The DSSH initiative at the University of Oldenburg

Outlook: Two PhD positions from 2027

On 1 January 2027, the DA:O will establish two PhD positions arising from the strategic development area ‘Digital Social Sciences and Humanities’. One is based in the Digital Archaeology of the Southern Levant (Prof. Dr Benedikt Hensel) and will work on establishing the Cultural Data Pipeline — ranging from the digital documentation of archaeological objects and findings, through AI-supported analytical methods, to historical interpretation, in collaboration with the German Evangelical Institute in Jerusalem. The other is dedicated to the digital prosopography of the Roman imperial cult (Prof. Dr Michael Sommer) and uses digital and AI-supported methods to catalogue the individuals and relationships within the imperial cult of the early imperial period.

Both positions are linked via the Northwest Alliance to the University of Bremen and the University of Groningen — including the possibility of a double doctorate — and are funded by the ‘Strategically Unlocking Potential’ funding programme of the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture and the Volkswagen Foundation.

Outlook: Master’s programme in “Digital Classical Studies”

A Master’s programme in ‘Digital Classical Studies’ is currently under development; it forms part of the DSSH initiative and is closely aligned with the DA:O in terms of its objectives, working methods and subject areas. It brings together elements that have rarely been combined before: the specialised depth of Oldenburg’s classical studies — Ancient History, Biblical Archaeology, the Old Testament and the New Testament — and the methodological expertise of the Digital Humanities. Academic responsibility for the programme lies with the professorships and research groups led by Prof. Dr Michael Sommer, Prof. Dr Torsten Jantsch and Prof. Dr Benedikt Hensel.

The degree programme addresses a structural gap. Researchers who combine historical and archaeological questions with robust digital methodology have so far been rare — and they have usually acquired expertise in both fields more by biographical chance than through deliberate study. It is precisely this hybrid qualification that is to become an established specialism in Oldenburg: internationally recognised and underpinned by an infrastructure in which the methods can be tested in ongoing research.

Interdisciplinary theses are already being produced

Digital methods have long been tried and tested in archaeology — geoinformation systems, databases, 3D documentation and scanning, the retro-digitisation of old analogue documentation, and machine learning. In practice, however, they usually remain one-off solutions: tailored to specific methods, focused on individual aspects, without interlocking as an integrated process. This is precisely where DA:O comes in.

The Oldenburg Processing Pipeline, currently under development, maps the excavation project as a continuous, multimodal process — from planning and organisation through daily field documentation to AI-supported analysis, geovisualisation, publication and long-term archiving. Text, photographic, 3D, surveying and GIS data are consolidated within a single data information system, guided by the FAIR principles. A second focus is on semi-automated analysis: image segmentation, vectorisation and AI-assisted feature recognition convert the findings on the ground into analysable plan data — a translation process that has hitherto been carried out entirely by hand. Both approaches are being tested in ongoing excavation work, particularly within the ‘Hazor Digital’ project.

In this context, Dr Patrick Leiverkus is preparing his habilitation thesis at the professorship for Old Testament and Biblical Archaeology:‘Evidentia — Evidence. Connected”, an open, modular platform for the recording, modelling, analysis and publication of archaeological evidence — from fieldwork to scholarly synthesis.

Evidentia is a key component of a larger development: The Oldenburg digital archaeological processing pipeline is being developed module by module within the context of Oldenburg’s field projects and research projects — through reciprocal processes in which field observations revise the data model and, conversely, the model highlights where previous research has left gaps.