Marie-Claire Beaulieu and Michèle Brunet's Paper presented at Second North American Congress of Greek and Latin Epigraphy University of California at Berkeley (USA) on 2016, January 4 http://aleshire.berkeley.edu/nacgle-2016

1. Visible Words
Research and Training in Digital
Contextual Epigraphy
Michèle Brunet Marie-Claire Beaulieu
Lyon 2/HiSoMA Tufts/Perseus Digital Library

3. Collaborators
• Michèle Brunet –Lyon II/HiSoMA
• John Bodel—Brown University/USEP
• M.C.Beaulieu —Tufts University/Perseus DL
• École Française d’Athènes
• Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient
• Links:
▫ http://vw2015program.postach.io/
▫ http://motsavoir.hypotheses.org/

4. Approach:
• Inscriptions are not only texts, they are
communication devices, interweaving visual
and verbal codes and meanings in a particular
context of visualization and reception.

5. The “hidden room” at Karnak: Dr. Laurent Coulon, Lyon 2

7. Dr. Arlo Griffiths, EFOE/ EPHE

8. The Project
• To advance research and train researchers in the
application of digital technologies to the study of
inscriptions
• Geospatial context of inscriptions
• Persons and Identities (prosopography)
• Inscriptions as decorative systems across cultures
• Epigraphy as a means to approach the written
word
▫ across cultures
▫ in its own archaeological context

9. Activities
• Summer field workshop in May 2015
▫ Field visits
▫ Squeezes
▫ Technical drawing
• Training in digital methods
▫ EpiDoc encoding
▫ Annotation
• Greek epigraphy seminar at Lyon II in September
2015 served as the center for mobility:
▫ Two students from Brown in Lyon in September ‘15
▫ Two students from Lyon at Brown in September ‘15
▫ Faculty presentations in Lyon (Bodel, Beaulieu)

10. Field workshop, Greece May 2015
• Athens
• Larissa
• Thasos

11. École Française d’Athènes

12. Athens
• Informational conference on digital epigraphy
on May 4
Student activities:
• Become familiar with important sites such as the
Acropolis and its museum
• Study a few stones in the stoa at the theater of
Dionysus
▫ Preliminary readings of selected stones
• Visit the Epigraphical Museum
▫ Study the accounting system of the Tribute Lists
with Véronique Chankowski

14. Larissa
• Become familiar with the archaeological context
of the large theater
• Study the inscriptions on the seats of the theater
• Reconstruct the social network of the family of
the Coccei from these inscriptions, following the
work of our colleague Dr. Richard Bouchon

18. Thasos
• Study the archaeological context of the island
• Focus on the monument of the Passage des
Théores from the ancient agora

19. Practical Training in Thasos
✓SQUEEZES
• How to make a squeeze
• How to transform a paper-squeeze into a
digital image
✓PHOTOGRAPHS
• How to take a good photo of an
inscription (2D)
• How to make a 3D reconstruction of an
inscription using photogrammetry
(Photoscan and Meshlab software)
✓DRAWINGS
• How to draw an inscription (hand
drawing)
• How to turn a hand drawing into a digital
drawing
• How to build a 3D view of a construction
with inscriptions (SketchUp)

20. Inscriptions from the Passage des Théores in Thasos
N. Bresch, IRAA CNRS, 2015

21. Chronological Anchor :
Antiphon s. of Kritoboulos
Cf. IG XII, 8, 263

23. Digital annotation: timeline
•Objective:
-Organize information chronologically
-Become familiar with the specifics of the document
-test the reconstructed chronology proposed by
Michèle Brunet
•Produce a new resource for the study of the document
•Sharable
•Updateable/extendable

24. Standards and approach
•Open Annotation, Dublin Core, CITE, LODE
-OA: interoperable framework for creating associations
between related resources on the web
-Dublin core: metadata standard
-CITE: Collections, Indices, Texts, and Extensions:
permanent canonical references to discrete objects
-LODE: ontology for Linking Open Descriptions of
Events
•URIs (stable identifiers) for people, places, relationships
•Reuse existing tools
-TimeMapper + Google + Perseids

25. Transcription in Perseids

26. Timemapper
http://timemapper.okfnlabs.org/

28. Google spreadsheet

30. Perseids - Import

31. Perseids - Preview

32. Open Annotation

33. Perseids - Data

34. Timemapper : going further
-Objectives: automated generation of a timeline
automated association of the data from the
transcription with that of LGPN via TEI-xml
-Start with: transcription of the text in Perseids+regions of
interest on the stone identified in the <facs> attribute
-xslt work by Emmanuelle Morlock—HiSoMA

37. (...)
<persName ref="#V1-39239">
Πρηξίπολις <persName>Φανόλ
<supplied reason="lost">εω</supplied>
</persName>
</persName>
(...)
(...) <person xml:id="V1-39239" sex="1">
<persName type="main" nymRef="#nPrhxi1polis">Πρηξίπολις</persName>
<birth notAfter="-0475" notBefore="-0525">
<placeName ref="pleiades:501635" key="LGPN_13610">Thasos</placeName>
</birth>
(...)
<bibl><title>IG</title> XII (8) 275, 17</bibl>
<bibl><title>BCH</title> Suppl. 5 (1979) p. 116 II</bibl>
</person> (...)
Metadata
Transcription

38. Result
http://timemapper.okfnlabs.org/emma_morlock/theores4#4

40. Student’s daily blog http://motsavoir.hypotheses.org/

41. Participation in sunoikisis DC
• International consortium of Digital Classics
program
• Led by Monica Berti, Humboldt Chair of Digital
Humanities, Universitt Leipzig
• 2 common sessions:
▫ One on Thucydides and the revolt of Thasos
showing our Timemapper work
▫ One on the walls of Thasos, offered by the
students:
https://plus.google.com/10569927224097039692
6/posts/KbxDA6pADWU

42. Sunoikisis common session by Lyon 2 students

43. Conclusions
● This project has provided a space for training and research
in digital epigraphy
● Training in traditional field methods
● Training in digital encoding (EpiDoc)
● Training in digital annotation techniques and standards
● Research
● Test various hypotheses (Larissa, Thasos)
● Develop and test annotation methods
● Develop new sets of tools, new integrations