The TALOS Centre in AI4SSH at the University of Crete is pleased to announce the Call for Abstracts for the 3rd Conference on Semantic Annotation for the Ancient World (SA4AW 2027), which will take place on May 13–14, 2027, in Rethymno, Crete, Greece, and online.

The conference explores the role of semantic annotation in the study of the ancient world, cultural heritage, and historical and low-resource languages. It welcomes contributions addressing the identification and linking of concepts, entities, and relationships in textual and visual data, through manual, automated, and human-in-the-loop annotation approaches.

Particular emphasis will be placed on expert-in-the-loop workflows, annotation standards and formats, and the integration of semantic annotation, ontologies, and knowledge graphs with Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models (LLMs). Topics of interest include multilingual annotation, Named Entity Recognition and Linking, knowledge graphs and Linked Open Data, digital scholarly editions, annotation tools and methodologies, interoperability, and the evaluation and validation of AI-assisted annotations.

The conference invites contributions from both early-career and established researchers, including theoretical reflections, methodological approaches, case studies, evaluation benchmarks, and interdisciplinary collaborations.

Submission Guidelines

Authors are invited to submit an anonymised abstract of 750–1,000 words (bibliography excluded) through EasyChair. Submissions will undergo a double-blind peer-review process. Accepted contributions will be presented in 20-minute presentations, followed by discussion. The working language of the conference is English.

Conference proceedings will be published in an open-access online format through Propylaeum.

Important Dates

  • Abstract submission deadline: December 15, 2026
  • Notification of acceptance: February 1, 2027
  • Confirmation of participation: February 15, 2027
  • Submission of camera-ready abstract: April 1, 2027
  • Conference dates: May 13–14, 2027
  • Submission of final paper: December 1, 2027
  • Publication of edited volume: July 2028

The conference is organised by the TALOS Centre in AI4SSH of the University of Crete (Horizon ERA Chair TALOS AI4SSH, Grant Agreement No. 101087269), in collaboration with the Department of Philology, University of Crete.

For further information and submission guidelines: