The historical galaxy surges endlessly, and the treasures of civilization shine brightly. What kind of sparks will collide when artificial intelligence (AI) meets the 5000 year old Chinese civilization? Empowering archaeological excavations with a 'smart eye', weaving a 'perception network' for cultural relic protection, and revitalizing cultural heritage in the digital age... Technological self-reliance and self-improvement have become essential for the protection and utilization of cultural relics. From archaeological excavation sites to cultural and museum research bases, from cultural relic restoration laboratories to museum exhibition halls, artificial intelligence is creating a new paradigm for safeguarding civilization, injecting infinite vitality and imagination into cultural inheritance and development. Exploring the Source Artificial Intelligence is injecting vitality into archaeology, a discipline that explores the past, with its powerful data processing and pattern recognition capabilities. It is the source of the ancient Shu civilization and the light of the civilization in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. ”The Baodun Ancient City Site in Chengdu, Sichuan, dating back 4500 to 3900 years ago, is the earliest and largest prehistoric city site discovered in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River in China. At the archaeological site of Baodun, archaeologists found that as early as 4000 years ago, the ancestors of Baodun had an aesthetic consciousness and decorated pottery with various patterns such as rope patterns and water ripples; Fragments of clay pottery and sand mixed pottery are scattered in the soil layer, quietly telling the secrets of ancient Shu civilization. Nowadays, seemingly ordinary pottery shards are becoming witnesses to the deep integration of artificial intelligence technology and archaeology. We have constructed a collection of digital pottery shards from the Baodun Culture period, and AI has shown great potential in handling complex problems in pottery shard classification. ”Wan Jiao, a research curator at Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said. The interdisciplinary team she belongs to brings together frontline archaeologists and artificial intelligence experts, and is currently conducting the "AI Exploration and Research of Sichuan Ceramic Fragment Archaeology" project. Currently, the team has successfully used AI models to determine the staging of ordinary ceramic fragments with high fragmentation and less information during the Baodun Culture period. The basis for determining staging has been further expanded from standardized tools to sporadically excavated broken ceramic fragments, providing a new tool for rapid and convenient staging and dating in archaeology. Traditional archaeology is a discipline that focuses on the 'past'. One person, one shovel, one exploration, may have been many people's imagination of the word "archaeology". It is not difficult to find from major archaeological excavation projects and events in recent years that "hand shoveling the Book of Heaven" is no longer the only way to decode civilization. The empowerment of artificial intelligence has opened up another "evolution" of archaeology, not only giving rise to new research results and application scenarios, but also improving practical efficiency and research depth. Faced with a large number of artifacts, animal and plant remains, human bones and other biological remains unearthed from archaeological excavations, as well as massive amounts of cultural relics protection and technological archaeological testing and analysis data, artificial intelligence is injecting vitality into the discipline of archaeology with its powerful data processing and pattern recognition capabilities. ”Professor Zhang Guowen from the School of History at Nankai University pointed out. On the computer screen, the images of oracle bone rubbings are gradually pieced together with the assistance of AI models. This scene has become a new exploration of artificial intelligence technology assisted ancient text research in recent years. Oracle bone conjugation refers to the process of combining various pieces of oracle bone information to create a complete or relatively complete material. Professor Mo Bofeng from the Oracle Bone Research Center of Capital Normal University admitted that in the past, oracle bone technicians would manually perform the joint, relying on personal experience and mental memory, which consumed a lot of time and energy. At present, AI can provide excellent assistance in the fields of oracle bone conjugation, oracle bone text recognition, and oracle bone weight correction. From field excavation to laboratory research, the deep integration of AI and archaeology has now extended to the classroom of talent cultivation - "Two professors who teach computer science have joined the archaeology class! ”Starting from last autumn semester, a new course for graduate students, "AI Archaeology," appeared on the schedule of Fudan University. The maximum number of course participants is 15, with 4 teaching assistants and no professional background restrictions. Associate Professor Wen Shaoqing from Fudan University's Institute of Science and Technology Archaeology is the "founder" of this class. He invited a professor from the School of Computer Science to teach students the specific content of six classes, including a brief history of AI development, AI principles, and image processing. When it comes to the original intention of offering this course, Wen Shaoqing said that AI archaeology is the next "main battlefield" of technological archaeology, hoping to enable students to fully experience the different application scenarios of AI archaeology and expand the application thinking of AI technology in interdisciplinary education. The application of AI technology in ceramic fragment splicing, the application of artificial intelligence in remote sensing archaeological site exploration, and the dating of bronze artifacts based on deep learning... Speaking of the final results of previous students, Wen Shaoqing said that in the new era of archaeology, there is an urgent need for interdisciplinary and composite talents with both arts and sciences. AI technology is a tool, and I hope students can truly try it out and make good use of it. ”Wen Shaoqing referred to AI empowering archaeology as' moving from the depths of the earth to the digital future '. During the excavation and protection of archaeological sites, researchers can analyze satellite and remote sensing data through AI to preliminarily identify lost ancient sites. For example, researchers can use AI technology to achieve digital twins of archaeological sites. AI has liberated productivity, and in the entire chain of archaeology, many scenes can be intervened by AI, greatly improving research efficiency and accuracy. ”The application scenarios of cutting-edge digital technologies represented by AI technology in the research of cultural relic protection and restoration are becoming increasingly diverse. In October of this year, the "Cloud Sea Across the Sea - Yungang Grottoes Art Exhibition" was held in Shanghai. Immersive experience of the beauty of Yungang and appreciation of millennium old grotto art, a 3D printed replica of the Western Buddha statue in Cave 20 of Yungang Grottoes in its original scale in the exhibition hall has amazed the audience: "I really can't believe that the Buddha statue from 1500 years ago is actually standing in front of me!" Behind this lies a story of cultural heritage protection and restoration spanning thousands of years - during the Northern Wei Dynasty, Yungang Grottoes were excavated along the mountain, stretching for 1 kilometer from east to west, with 45 main caves and over 59000 statues of various sizes. As one of the earliest "Five Caves of Tanyao" excavated in Yungang, Cave 20 originally had a "Worshiping Buddha" on both the east and west sides. However, the Western Buddha collapsed as early as the Northern Wei Dynasty and there is no record of its form. Its original appearance has become a mystery for thousands of years. How did the Xili Buddha on display today "reincarnate"? During the excavation of the site in front of the cave, we discovered many fragments of Xili Buddha, which would be very difficult to restore using traditional methods. ”Hang Kan, the president of Yungang Research Institute, said. A stone with a thousand years of wind and frost is placed in the warehouse, quietly waiting for the opportunity to 'assemble'. This is more than 20 years. In 2014, we started to perform stitching by hand in the early stage, and later started using 3D laser scanners for high-precision scanning. We also used artificial intelligence based image clustering research to recombine more than 100 image fragments in virtual space. ”Li Lihong, a curator at the Digital Protection Center of Yungang Research Institute, introduced. The real challenge lies in the virtual restoration of the missing Buddha statue's head and upper garment patterns. Without any historical reference, the digital team turned their attention to contemporaneous statues: other Buddha statues in the Tanyao Five Caves, as well as stone carvings in the Gandhara and Mothula art styles, have all become "sample libraries" for AI learning. After training models with more than 10 different algorithms and expert verification, the closest restoration result was finally generated, and the "disappeared" 20th Cave West Buddha was "reborn". The resonance between Northern Wei stone carving art and contemporary digital technology spans thousands of years, accumulating valuable experience for virtual restoration of grottoes and digital restoration of lost overseas grottoes. The thousand year old Shu Road winds through and is dotted with numerous grottoes. The Sichuan Chongqing region is one of the most densely distributed areas of grotto temples in China. Like historical books engraved on cliffs, scattered among rural mountains, they embody the extraordinary wisdom of ancient craftsmen. In June of this year, a "Joint Protection Initiative for Sichuan Chongqing Grottoes" was released, promoting the protection and utilization of grotto temples in Sichuan and Chongqing from multiple aspects. One major challenge facing the protection of grottoes in the Sichuan Chongqing region is the shallow deterioration, water seepage, and biological diseases caused by high temperatures, humidity, and heavy rainfall. ”Wang Jie, deputy director of the key scientific research base of the National Cutural Heritage Administration, said that the research on technology integration and application of the grotto temple cultural relics protection project. Faced with these challenges, Wang Jie and her team are committed to researching key technologies for exploring shallow rock mass diseases in grottoes. She introduced, "The AI video monitoring robot we use can clearly recognize some rock mass changes that cannot be seen by the naked eye, automatically capture images 24 hours a day and perform intelligent calculations. The staff can grasp the disease situation on the grotto cultural relics from multiple perspectives and angles. ”In the future, the team also hopes to achieve intelligent recognition and warning functions, and propose repair suggestions based on data analysis. In Wang Jie's view, cultural relic protection is a race against time. Through AI technology, it is possible to accurately capture surface diseases such as weathering, peeling, and biological erosion through image recognition, and to achieve real-time millimeter level dynamic tracking of cultural relics settlement and dangerous rock cracks. Environmental monitoring, disease identification... Nowadays, AI technology has opened up "intelligent protection" for cultural relics. Whether it is efficient analysis of environmental data, warning of potential risks, or predicting the development of diseases, technology is making the systematic protection of cultural relics more sensitive, accurate, and intelligent. Inheritance brings Chinese civilization into life in a more lively form, and integrates millennium wisdom into daily life in a tangible way. "Where do you come from? ”What's his name? "At the Shaanxi History Museum's" Dialogue with Yuwen Yong - Exhibition of Scientific and Archaeological Achievements of Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou Xiaoling ", on an AI interactive device, the restored appearance of Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou, Yuwen Yong, was" awakened "and engaged in conversations with children that spanned thousands of years. This is a digital human trained by the team with the help of the restored image of Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou and the Shaanxi History Museum using an AI big model. During the development process, we established a localized database and imported a large amount of historical materials for them to learn from, allowing the Homo sapiens to naturally present Yuwen Yong's language style and temperament. ”Wen Shaoqing said. Nowadays, the combination of artificial intelligence with cutting-edge technologies such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and digital twins is building an invisible bridge between history and the present, allowing the millennium civilization to continue to pulse in digital time and space. What is the experience of traveling back a thousand years to the painting "Jinling Map"? Entering the 'Jinling Digital Art Exhibition', visitors can wear smart bracelets and transform into Song Dynasty figures, meeting 533 people from Jinling city. ”At the 43rd session of the UNESCO General Conference on "Artificial Intelligence from the Perspective of Museums", Eileen, the director of the Deji Art Museum, shared China's innovative practices in using digital technology to stimulate the vitality of cultural heritage. The addition of new technologies such as artificial intelligence has transformed collections into tangible cultural experiences, allowing the public to conveniently appreciate art, understand culture, and deeply experience the development of civilization. ”Eileen said. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China proposed to "root in the profound and extensive Chinese civilization, and follow the trend of information technology development"; The newly revised Cultural Relics Protection Law specifies the promotion of digital collection, display, and utilization of cultural relics resources; The Central Office and the State Council issued the "Opinions on Promoting the Implementation of the National Cultural Digitalization Strategy", proposing to develop new scenarios for digital cultural consumption and vigorously develop new digital cultural experiences that integrate online and offline, and combine online presence. Let Chinese civilization enter life in a more lively and innovative form, and let millennium wisdom be integrated into daily life in a tangible way. The power of technology is profoundly changing people's cultural life. Dunhuang's "Jiayao" and National Museum