Lesbos Time Machine
The “Deep Data Science for Digital History” doctoral training unit (D4H-DTU) has organised a one-week summer school from the 15th to the 22nd of June, 2025 at the Metochi Study Centre of University of Agder, Norway located on the Greek Island of Lesbos. The Metochi Study Centre offers a unique environment with plenty of possibilities for fostering dialogue and intellectual exchange.
This one-week summer school brings together PhD students of the D4H-DTU, who come from a wide range of fields in the social and computer sciences, the humanities and history to collaborate on the creation of a digital “Lesbos Time Machine.”
The goal of the summer school is to have students collaborate in small groups to explore the island in search of historical evidence (“data”) about its rich past.
Lesbos’ rich heritage includes a UNESCO World Heritage classified “Petrified Forest”, a rich architectural heritage, historic landscapes, numerous smaller museums and important monasteries with medieval manuscripts—some of which have already been digitised by Professor Apostolos Spanos, who will join the summer school as a teacher.
The “challenge” for the PhD students/participants is to detect/unearth/retrieve historical “data” available on the island and to map, collect, curate and manage that data to produce a mobile app—the “Lesbos Time Machine”—that will allow future visitors to discover the history of Lesbos in a playful, interactive and digital manner.
Through fieldwork, data collection and critical analysis, participants will explore the island’s rich historical heritage and experiment with innovative scientific methodologies, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and hands-on experience with historical data while engaging with areas such as AI-driven analytics, data management, and digital visualization, and investigating the intersection of historical inquiry and computational methods.
