Taking the work on the graphemic and morphemic analysis of the cuneiform texts of Ebla as a starting point, the paper reviews the ‘grammatical’ criteria that make digital coding not only more efficient and dynamic, but also intellectually more in tune with the goal of establishing an argument and unfolding a narrative. This throws light on aspects of software application on the one hand (such as the semantic web) and of the digital humanities on the other, ranging from textual to archaeological data.

Cuneiform tablets remain founding cornerstones of two hundred plus collections in American academic institutions, having been acquired a century or more ago under dynamic ethical norms and global networks. To foster data sharing, this contribution incorporates empirical data from interactive ArcGIS and reusable OpenContext maps to encourage tandem dialogues about using the inscribed works and learning their collecting histories. Such provenance research aids, on their own, initiate the narration of objects’ journeys over time while cultivating the digital inclusion of expert local knowledge relevant to an object biography. The paper annotates several approaches institutions are or might consider using to expand upon current provenance information in ways that encourage visitors’ critical thinking and learning about global journeys, travel archives, and such dispositions as virtual reunification, reconstructions, or restitution made possible by the provenance research.

Il contributo fornisce una breve storia di EAGLE: nasce nel 2003 come Electronic Archive of Greek and Latin Epigraphy, una federazione di banche dati che si riconoscono nello stesso modo di concepire l’epigrafia digitale; si evolve tra il 2013 e il 2016 come aggregatore e content provider di Europeana (Europeana network of Ancient Greek and Latin Epigraphy); dal 2020 accoglie EDF (Epigraphic Database Falsae), la prima banca dati dedicata al fenomeno della falsificazione epigrafica.

EDV (Epigraphic Database Vernacular) is a database collecting the vernacular inscriptions produced in Italy from the late Medieval to the Early Modern Age, and is a part of the EAGLE and IDEA projects. The present contribution illustrates the criteria used for the description and indexing of all inscriptions that record public script in language(s) other than Latin. The material is very varied as regards language, script, provenance, support and function. The author discusses briefly the editorial criteria that may prove most appropriate for its publication.

Textual databases enable precise linguistic comparisons and the study of chronological developments of languages in the geographic space and help safeguard endangered world heritage. In this article, we describe an ongoing study of planning and designing a catalogue of 400 Phoenician‑Punic inscriptions and examine strategies of catalogue standardization and implementation, tagging and annotation systems, digital sustainability and cost‑effectiveness. The database will be searchable (of metadata and textual data), linked, and open on the network.

New instruments can lead to radical changes in scientific knowledge: the role of Galileo's telescope in the revolution in astronomy is well known in this respect. I am convinced that the use of computer technology must hold an analogous function in the humanities. So far, this role has been under-valued because of the technical means' former embryonic status. However, the power of today's computers is transforming the ways in which we do research: quantitative change eventually leads to qualitative change. We can now engage in cross queries of vast corpuses in a way unimaginable only ten years ago. In addition, thanks to networking, all of the documentation is potentially accessible from any point on the planet, or at least nearly so. I would like to present an example of computer use that suggests a paradoxical situation. We can now exploit the oldest archives of humanity by using the latest computer technology, making them available to all via an online database. The “Archibab” project began six years ago in response to a call for proposals entitled, “Corpus and tools for research in the humanities” issued by the French National Research Agency. It covers Mesopotamian records from the Old Babylonian period, dating from the 20th –17th B.C.E., hence the acronym ARCHIBAB (Fr., “ARCHIves BAByloniennes;” Eng. “Babylonian archives”) by which the project is designated. I would like first to define the spirit that guided the development of this project; second, to give concrete examples of what we can ask of the Website created through this project; and finally to outline the developing prospects for the coming years.

Le VÉgA, ou Vocabulaire de l’Égyptien Ancien, est un dictionnaire en ligne qui vise à devenir pour l’égyptologie une source incontournable et actualisée, ainsi qu’un support de collaborations scientifiques pour les décennies à venir. Le VÉgA permet de modéliser et représenter les connaissances évolutives en égyptien ancien, en regroupant et recoupant les mots, leurs attestations, leurs références, leurs graphies exactes en hiéroglyphes. Cet outil est le fruit d’une collaboration public/privé dans le cadre du LabEx Archimede de l’Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3. Le VÉgA résulte d’une approche nouvelle dans les sciences humaines et sociales, en l’occurrence l’égyptologie, intégrant les méthodes et les outils du design dans la recherche scientifique. Le LabEx Archimede s’est adjoint le savoir-faire d’une agence disposant d’une expérience de recherche par le design qui correspondait parfaitement aux besoins des égyptologues.

This work presents a corpus of transliterated cuneiform tablets from the Electronic Babylonian Library (eBL) platform, including a public API endpoint to download the latest version of the data, and a Python library to parse the transliterations in ATF format. As of the time of writing, the constantly growing dataset contains around 25,000 tablets with over 350,000 lines of transliterated text. This dataset is a sizeable addition to open-source cuneiform data and a major milestone for research within the fields of cuneiform studies and NLP.

The Tesserae Project offers a free online intertextual search tool for ancient Greek, Latin, and English. Tesserae has in the past allowed for a pairwise searching of literary texts in these languages for exact word or lemma similarities. This paper describes two new types of search now offered by Tesserae, by meaning (semantic search) and by sound.

Comme Gaignières en son temps, les dynamiques actuelles et les politiques publiques d’ouverture des données réinterrogent les dispositifs de collecte, de mise à disposition et d’exploitation des corpus d’informations qui aujourd’hui sont numériques. Se mettent en place des hubs de données, sortes de collections multiformes qui se développent aussi bien en local sur notre territoire qu’au niveau international. Ces objets qui sont aujourd'hui appelés entrepôts de données ne sont pas neutres et détermineront le paysage de la recherche sur le patrimoine de demain. Cette communication entend s’interroger sur ces objets pour lesquels la dimension technique et les interfaces jouent un rôle majeur. Il s’agit aussi de réfléchir dans quelle mesure, comme pour la collection Gaignières, ces outils influent sur nos dynamiques de connaissance. Nous utiliserons pour illustrer nos propos un nouvel outil, que nous souhaitons mettre en perspective : la plateforme open data La Fabrique Numérique du Passé. La Fabrique Numérique du Passé (FNP), plateforme open data pour les données géohistoriques se fixe comme objectif de développer pour les sciences du patrimoine et du passé des outils accessibles de capitalisation et de mise à disposition des données, respectant les principes de l’open data et du fair data. FNP s’adresse aux acteurs de la recherche afin de leur permettre de s’impliquer simplement dans une démarche d’ouverture des données qui prend pied dans le mouvement plus global de l’open science (ouvrirlascience.fr). Plus fonctionnellement, il s’agit d’agglomérer l’information existante et de mettre à disposition de tous, en libre téléchargement, les données produites dans le cadre de projets et programmes de recherche (PCR, ANR, ERC...) dans leur format standard le plus « accessible » afin d’être facilement réutilisables par l’ensemble des acteurs du monde socio-économique et des acteurs du territoire. La Fabrique numérique du passé, permet ainsi de faire la jonction pour nos disciplines entre des lieux de dépôts pérennes (entrepôts de données comme Nakala pour les Sciences Humaines et Sociales), des acteurs qui produisent des données dans le cadre de projets de recherche et un capital de données qui doit être à la fois pérennisé et accessible pour être mobilisé par de nouveaux acteurs. , Like Gaignières in his day, current trends and public policies to open up data are re-examining the mechanisms for collecting, making available and exploiting bodies of information that are now digital. Data hubs are being set up, multiform collections developing both locally in France and internationally. These objects, now known as data warehouses, are not neutral and will determine the landscape of heritage research in the future. The aim of this paper is to examine these objects, whose technical dimension and interfaces play a major role. It will also look at the extent to which, as in the case of the Gaignières collection, these tools influence the dynamics of our knowledge. To illustrate this, we will be using a new tool that we hope to put into perspective: the open data platform La Fabrique Numérique du Passé. La Fabrique Numérique du Passé (FNP), an open data platform for geohistorical data, has set itself the goal of developing accessible tools for the sciences of heritage and the past to capitalise on and make available data, in accordance with the principles of open data and fair data. FNP is aimed at research players, enabling them to get involved in a simple process of opening up data as part of the wider open science movement (ouvrirlascience.fr). More functionally, the aim is to bring together existing information and make the data produced as part of research projects and programmes (PCR, ANR, ERC, etc.) available for free download in the most “accessible” standard format so that it can be easily reused by all socioeconomic players and local stakeholders. The FNP is a way of bridging the gap for our disciplines between permanent repositories (data warehouses such as Nakala for the humanities and social sciences), players who produce data as part of research projects and a pool of data that needs to be both durable and accessible so that it can be mobilised by new players.