China aims to use AI to piece together excavated artifacts

China’s National Cultural Heritage Administration wants to study how artificial intelligence could help archaeologists piece together artifacts found in fragments. On October 31, 2026, it confirmed to Zhang Gailun, a reporter for Science and Technology Daily, that it had just released its archaeology plan for the fifteenth national planning cycle, from 2026 to 2030.

Item 25 of the overall heritage plan already encouraged the use of AI and three-dimensional modeling. China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment republished the text on September 30, 2026. The archaeology plan sets out the intended uses in more detail. AI would help identify excavated artifacts and spot possible joins between fragments. Archaeologists could then test how the pieces fit together on screen.

The administration plans to establish common standards for data collection, create open, shared archaeological datasets and support the development of large AI models specializing in archaeology. To examine errors made by a future tool, other teams could repeat a test if they had access to the same scans and to a record of the joins the archaeologists accepted or rejected.

The vessel bearer’s knees

At Sanxingdui in Sichuan, Pit 3 yielded a kneeling bronze figure bearing a large ritual vessel called a zun on its head. Pit 8 contained a four-legged mythical animal. A small figure stands on its head. In the virtual reconstruction shown to the public on January 1, 2023, the researchers proposed placing the large vessel bearer on the animal’s back.

Traces of welding on the animal’s back matched marks on the figure’s knees. Xu Feihong, who led the excavation of Pit 3, told Cover News how the team had tested the join. By comparing the 3D models, the researchers were able to verify that the dimensions and marks matched at the points of contact without moving the bronzes.

In September 2023, the Hong Kong Palace Museum displayed a life-size projection of the reconstruction. It also incorporated a fragment of the vessel’s rim found in Pit 2.

Tencent, a technical partner of the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute, says the team used AI to assess the proportions, weight and balance of the reconstruction. The company says computer vision also helped reconstruct a missing ear and arm on screen. The surviving marks on the bronze support the proposed position of the knees. The reconstructed shape of the arm remains hypothetical.