Abstract The new digital technologies have become an effective tool for researchers in different fields. Historians and archaeologists who are studying Greek and Roman Libya have benefited from technical developments in presenting different kinds of data, particularly relating to the epigraphy and toponymy of Libya. They have recently published several resources, and are working on more. This study presents the story of how scholars have collected a variety of Libyan heritage materials and published them online; the account makes it clear that these digital projects are the result of extensive and ongoing collaboration between researchers from different countries, including Libya. They have worked together, and are still working to produce valuable online corpora of inscriptions alongside the Heritage Gazetteer of Libya which records names used at different times, and in a variety of languages, of heritage sites. We also discuss plans for further improving the accessibility of these materials, and encouraging their wider use. , أصبحت التقنيات الرقمية الحديثة أداة فعالة للباحثين في مجالات مختلفة، وقد استفاد المؤرخون والآثاريون، المهتمون بتاريخ ليبيا وآثارها في الفترتين الإغريقية والرومانية، من التطورات التقنية لتقديم بيانات (data) مختلفة وخاصة تلك المتعلقة بالنقوش ودراسة مسميات المواقع الأثرية بليبيا. قام هؤلاء حديثاً بنشر مصادر متعددة، معضمها لنقوش، ولا يزال العمل مستمر على أعمال أخرى. توضح هذه الدراسة الكيفية التي تمكن خلالها الباحثون من جمع مواد متنوعة من التراث الليبي، ثم نشرها لتكون متاحة للجميع على الشبكة العنكبوتية (الإنترنت). تُبين هذه الورقة بشكل جلي أن هذه المشاريع الرقمية جاءت نتيجة تعاون مكثف ودؤوب بين باحثين من بلدان عِدَّة بما فيها ليبيا. حيث عملوا معاً ولا يزالوا مستمرين في تقديم مجموعة قيمة للنقوش الإغريقية واللاتينية، بالإضافة إلى فهرس جغرافي يسجل اسماء لمواقع أثرية اُستخدمت في حقب مختلفة وسُميت بلغات متعددة. كما ناقشت هذه الورقة خططاً من شأنها تطويرإمكانية الوصول لهذه المواد التراثية وتشجيع استخدامها على نطاق موسع .
The ERC-Advanced Grant project DASI has contributed to define and foster best practices in the digitization of pre-Islamic inscriptions Arabian inscriptions. As one of the early attempts at digitizing the epigraphic heritage related to Semitic languages, it has been facing specific challenges in support description and text encoding. This contribute describes the solutions chosen to encode and represent different kinds of phenomena, such as phonemes typical of the Semitic languages, onomastics, textual portions, symbols and grammatical phenomena. Moreover a digital lexicon tool for under-resources languages, such as those attested in the epigraphic documentation of pre-Islamic Arabia, is illustrated.
The paper describes the main challenges faced, and the solutions adopted in the frame of the project DASI - Digital Archive for the study of pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions. In particular, the methodological and technological issues emerged in the conversion from a domain-specific text-based project of digital edition of an epigraphic corpus, to an objective-driven archive for the study and dissemination of inscriptions in different languages and scripts are discussed. With a view to keeping pace with, and possibly fostering reasoning on best practices in the community of digital epigraphers beyond each specific cultural/linguistic domain, special attention is devoted to: the modelling of data and encoding (XML annotation vs database approach; the conceptual model for the valorization of the material aspect of the epigraph; the textual encoding for critical editions); interoperability (pros and cons of compliance to standards; harmonization of metadata; openness; semantic interoperability); lexicography (tools for under-resourced languages; translations).
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.
Annotated corpora, provided that they adopt international standards and expose data in open format, have many more chances to be easily exploited and reused for different objectives than traditional, analogue corpora. This paper aims at presenting the results of the early adhesion to best practices and principles afterward codified as Open Science and FAIR principles in the frame of projects concerned with digital textual corpora, in a niche area of research such as the pre-Islamic Arabian epigraphy. The case study analysed in this paper is the Digital Archive for the Study of pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions – DASI, an online annotated corpus of the textual sources from Ancient Arabia, which also exposes its records in standard formats (oai_dc, EpiDoc, EDM) in an OAI-PMH repository. The initiatives of reuse of DASI open data in the frame of the recently ANR-funded project Maparabia (CNRS-CNR) are discussed in the paper, focusing on the exploitation of DASI’s onomastic and geographic data in a new reference tool, the Gazetteer of Ancient Arabia. After introducing DASI and Maparabia projects and highlighting the objectives of the Gazetteer, the paper describes the conceptual model of its database and the module importing data from DASI. The population of the Gazetteer, implying also a data entry and manipulation phase, is exemplified by the case-study of the Ancient South Arabian place ‘Barāqish/Yathill’. Based on the above experience, limitations and opportunities of data reuse and synchronisation issues between systems are discussed.
Hesperia. Banco de datos de lenguas paleohispánicas and AELAW. Ancient European Languages and Writings are two narrowly linked projects whose common feature is their general aim: cataloguing the documents written in the ancient languages of Europe (8th cent. BCE–5th cent. CE) excluding Latin, Greek, and Phoenician. Although both projects are closely linked, BDHesp has a track record of twenty years, while AELAW has been active for only two and a half years. In this paper, where we have especially focused on BDHesp, we summarize the problems that arose during the encoding of Palaeohispanic languages, written in multiple writing systems and their variants, and the solutions addressed. We also present the promising tools that have been developed in BDHesp to make significant progress in our understanding of Palaeohispanic languages and writings. Lastly, we introduce AELAW network and its two databases, its aims and what we intend to accomplish in the future.
The information expressed in humanities datasets is inextricably tied to a wider discursive environment that is irreducible to complete formal representation. Humanities scholars must wrestle with this fact when they attempt to publish or consume structured data. The practice of “nanopublication,” which originated in the e-science domain, offers a way to maintain the connection between formal representations of humanities data and its discursive basis. In this paper we describe nanopublication, its potential applicability to the humanities, and our experience curating humanities nanopublications in the PeriodO period gazetteer.
Dieser Artikel stellt einen Gazetteer für antike Kalenderdaten vor: Im Zentrum von “Graph of Dated Objects and Texts” (GODOT) steht eine graphenbasierte Modellierung chronologischer Kalenderdaten aus der klassischen Griechisch-Römischen Antike – diese erlaubt ein verlustfreies, flexibles und präzises Aufnehmen aller Bestandteile eines nicht-gregorianischen Datums und nicht nur der Konvertierungen in den Julianischen Kalender, wie sie üblicherweise in Digitalen Editionen bisher vorgenommen wurde. Die stabilen und zitierbaren URIs für Instanzen aus diversen Kalendersystemen können in Digitalen Editionen (Datenbank-basiert oder TEI/XML-basiert) wiederverwendet werden, oder dienen dem Festlegen von Start- und Endpunkten von Periodendefinitionen oder Events.
This article is a report about the progress and current status of the World Historical Gazetteer (whgazetteer.org) (WHG) in the context of its value for helping to organize and record digital and paleographic information. It summarizes the development and functionality of the WHG as a software platform for connecting specialist collections of historical place names. It also reviews the idea of places as entities (rather than simple objects with single labels). It also explains the utility of gazetteers in digital library infrastructure and describes potential future developments.