This chapter examines the status of the digital study of premodern spatial documents understood as expressions of local knowledge systems. It investigates the tension between the prevalently Cartesian perception of the world underlying modern efforts of mapping and spatial analysis, and the contrasting multiplicity of premodern spatial epistemologies, which reveal deep, multi-layered forms of representation. The first part summarizes the dynamics in the development of spatial knowledge and offers a gallery of examples showing the complexity of premodern spatial descriptions. The second part evaluates current trends in Digital Humanities and examines the ways in which this complexity is (or is not) addressed. The conclusion emphasizes the main issues that still affect the study of premodern spatial perception and proposes some recommendations.
What are the implications of digital representation on intellectual property and ownership of cultural heritage? Are aspirations to preservation and accessibility in the digital space reconcilable with cultural sensitivities, colonized history, and cultural appropriation?This volume brings together different perspectives from academics and practitioners of Cultural Heritage, to address current debates in the digitization and other computational study of cultural artifacts. From the tension between the materiality of cultural heritage objects and the intangible character of digital models, we explore larger issues in intellectual property, collection management, pedagogical practice, inclusion and accessibility, and the role of digital methods in decolonization and restitution debates.The contributions include perspectives from a wide range of disciplines, addressing these questions within the study of the material culture of Africa, Europe, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.
An epigraph is a complex historical document, whose significance is fully acknowledged only if its textual features (script, language, content, etc.) are studied in combination with the contextual information (on the textual support and its provenance). This is the reason why digital epigraphy lies at the crossroads of different disciplines applying ITs to textual and material sources, such as digital philology, computational linguistics, and computational archaeology. The specific interests and methods of those disciplines have exerted an influence on digital epigraphy, which is apparent in the documentary vs statistical approaches applied over time to the electronic treatment of the (re)source ‘inscription’. The aim of the paper is to trace those trends in the application of qualitative vs quantitative methods in the history of studies of digital epigraphy, highlighting the main moments of change, until the most recent developments.
Recensione del volume "Digital Approaches to Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies" di P.M. Liuzzo.
Review of: Digital and Traditional Epigraphy in Context. Proceedings of the EAGLE 2016 International Conference, a cura di S. Orlandi, R. Santucci, F. Mambrini, P.M. Liuzzo.
Review of the volume: CyberResearch on the Ancient Near East and Neighboring Regions. Case Studies on Archaeological Data, Objects, Texts, and Digital Archiving, a cura di V. Bigot Juloux, A.R. Gansell, A. Di Ludovico.
Through the annals of time, writing has slowly scrawled its way from the painted surfaces of stone walls to the grooves of inscriptions to the strokes of quill, pen, and ink. While we still inscribe stone (tombstones, monuments) and we continue to write on skin (tattoos abound), our quotidian method of writing on paper is increasingly abandoned in favor of the quick-to-generate digital text. And even though the stone-inscribed text of epigraphy offers demonstrably better permanence than that of writing on skin and paper—even better than that of the memory system of the modern computer (Bollacker in Am Sci 98:106, 2010)—this field of study has also made the digital leap. Today’s scholarly analyses of epigraphic content increasingly rely on high-tech approaches involving data science and computer models. This essay discusses how advances in a number of exciting technologies are enabling the digital analysis of epigraphic texts and accelerating the ability of scholars to preserve, renew, and reinvigorate the study of the inscriptions that remain from throughout history.
This article advances the thesis that three decades of investments by national and international funders, combined with those of scholars, technologists, librarians, archivists, and their institutions, have resulted in a digital infrastructure in the humanities that is now capable of supporting end-to-end research workflows. The article refers to key developments in the epigraphy and paleography of the premodern period. It draws primarily on work in classical studies but also highlights related work in the adjacent disciplines of Egyptology, ancient Near East studies, and medieval studies. The argument makes a case that much has been achieved but it does not declare “mission accomplished.” The capabilities of the infrastructure remain unevenly distributed within and across disciplines, institutions, and regions. Moreover, the components, including the links between steps in the workflow, are generally far from user-friendly and seamless in operation. Because further refinements and additional capacities are still much needed, the article concludes with a discussion of key priorities for future work.