Introduction
EAGLE, The Europeana network for Ancient Greek and Latin Epigraphy,[1] a project co-founded by the European Commission, has as its sole aim to harmonize
and aggregate data for Europeana:[2]the trusted source of cultural heritage
. Very easy to say, but no easy task in practice. It is impossible to achieve the
trust users have in the original resources with the aggregated content.
There are 18 so called content providers
, which are member since the beginning of the project and represent a large part of
all existing databases of epigraphy in Europe. These include members of the EAGLE
consortium (Electronic Archive of Greek and Latin Epigraphy).[3] Together with these, other new members join regularly with small and larger databases
to be aggregated.[4] Some Content providers have photos, some an epigraphic archive, some various materials
(books, drawings, squeezes, etc.) which can be related one way or another to inscriptions.[5]
Two orders of problems arise:
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The problem of harmonization and models for aggregation.
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How to provide a meaningful architecture to existing data.
Cultural Heritage Objects
The question here is very basic: what is a Cultural Heritage Object? The answer is different for Europeana compared to digital epigraphers, but also among the content providers of the EAGLE project.[6] Internally some think that the object bearing the inscription is what is described and archived, and thus tend sometimes to include also object which are not inscribed. Some other instead think primarily of the text and describe the object only when this is possible, because some inscriptions are known to us only through previous collections preserved in manuscripts from XVII-XVIII century (for example Figure 1). Some other instead try to take an holistic approach, inevitably falling one side or the other nevertheless, partially because of the model and the tradition they actually follow (EAGLE proceedings 1). I don't think there is anything wrong with any of such approaches, but they are radically different when one wants to have firm grounds to provide a definition to a machine.
Figure 1: Object or Inscription? Lost inscribed Instrumentum Domesticum
G. Alföldy, from the Heidelberg Photographic Database.
To try and harmonize we wanted to model the data in two levels: with TEI-EpiDoc,[7] which is tailored for epigraphic contents and captures the details about the text;
and in CIDOC-CRM to represent in an unambiguous way the object and its relations to
various kinds of information.[8] The CIDOC-CRM modelling had to stop in front of the Aristotelic complexity of precisely
defining such object as an inscription which does not let one describe it primarily
as a stone to be kept in a museum rather than a book kept in a library, bringing to
the surface the traditional nature of documentation, linked to the institutions doing
it (two examples Figure 2 and Figure 2).
Figure 2: From the holes to the inscription
G. Alföldy, from the Heidelberg Photographic Database.
Figure 3: Reconstructing an inscription
G. Alföldy, from the Heidelberg Photographic Database.
Still, TEI-EpiDoc captures all the information that is typically connected to an inscription
and allows to harmonize data from all the content providers to be harvested by Europeana.[9] We had to leave out personal names because there is there a question, as for lexicon
and places,[10] of whether it is actually better to have all marked up on the one text (so different
intertwined semantic levels of markup) or it does make sense to mark up different
layers of information as separate annotations or as distinct layers of information.[11] So done, the problem comes again. Europeana intends a CHO (Cultural Heritage Object)
basically as a couple between a digital object/resource with a landing page. edm:isShownAt is so defined:
An unambiguous URL reference to the digital object on the provider’s web site in its full information context) somewhere: photo, video, audio or text (
edm:type).
a bookor a
document. This is partially forced by the other part of the basic and simple diad at the heart of the Europeana model,
edm:isShownBy:
An unambiguous URL reference to the digital object on the provider’s web site in the best available resolution/quality.
ScannedBook.djvu, described at my.book/0000 that is a CHO, if I have a PhotoOfAnInscription.JPG, described at my.inscription/0000, that is also a CHO, but a poor inscription.xml or inscription.html without a photo for the many reason for which a photo can just not be there, is not
fine, it fails to fullfill the definition.
First proof of concept: there is no place in the EDM (Europeana Data Model) for text,
it belongs in the description or is the digital object which needs to be something
not just text
as it simply is. In some cases a PDF file has been produced to be attached to the
description. Second proof of concept: if I have an Intellectual Property Right Statement
applied to the work carried out to encode (and thus the editorial and intellectual
work required to do so) an inscription (my non-existing text), that is ignored in
favour of the copyright of a photo (the real thing / digital object), of which those
marked up data are just descriptive metadata, including the text. There is no intellectual
property on the work done encoding and editing the text, which is the thing most of
as spend their life for.
So it is true that a simple system is very much desirable. But, as Einstein said,
everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
EAGLE aggregation
Within the larger EAGLE network there are many partners with different datasets. Traditionally a student in Epigraphy needs to be lectured about the different databases and their history to be able to use them, although there aren’t that many inscriptions, compared to how many manuscripts and ancient books survived to our days. So how to connect the resources available, avoid duplication or triplication of work and harmonize a competitive sector which needs not to be competitive and actually finds its own detriment and decadence in such competition? In EAGLE we have looked at this from two points of view.
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bringing things together trying to harmonize vocabularies aligning them to concept with multiple values
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bringing in more and diverse players, by constantly enlarging the network and, e.g. by mirroring collections to Wikimedia projects, which hosted already a wealth of community-created data about epigraphy.
Figure 4: Object or Inscription? Lost inscribed Instrumentum Domesticum
A Screenshoot of a concept in the EAGLE vocabularies.
The first effort resulted in minting a series of URIs for concept related to fields using controlled vocabularies in a digital epigraphic edition, which harmonize not just different languages but also different usages, without the need of forcing a strict hierarchy, although the latter seems to be for some more desirable than freedom of markup.
The second effort materialized in three different ways, still under exam in terms of their impact:
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the upload of photos to Wikimedia Commons[13] with an ArtPhoto template (again here there is no specific template and some sort of resistance to creating new ones). Then we have added information about the inscriptions already there and to the newly uploaded following the criteria of the current practice in Wikimedia Commons.
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We have set up the first (and apparently only) instance of Wikibase outside Wikidata,[14] to allow people to enter translations of inscriptions, badly missing everywhere (there are only around 3% of existing inscriptions available in translation) in a very simple structure: identifiers, photos and translations with attribution.[15] Wikibase[16] is entirely free, properties can be created ad hoc and without too much of a problem. although one cannot go to much into details as the description of the text, it could describe everything one needs to describe in its own entirely idiosyncratic way. One might wonder if this is actually useful, I can assure it is indeed very practical and efficient.
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We align our identifiers for controlled vocabularies and for places (provided by Trismegistos[17]) with Wikidata.
But still the path seems to be very long. How do we connect and annotate these resources if we have to rely on arbitrary identifiers which are not inferable and readable? How will users make their way through the wealth of available data if they do not know what is there? Sticking information around to provide orientation is not enough, as it is not enough to structure information, it perhaps needs to be going to the users in the largest possible number of ways.
References
[EAGLE proceedings 1] Orlandi S., Santucci R., Casarosa V. e Liuzzo P. Information Technologies for Epigraphy and Cultural Heritage, Roma 2014. http://www.eagle-network.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Paris-Conference-Proceedings.pdf. doi:10.13133/978-88-98533-42-8.
[Panciera 2012] Panciera, Silvio. “What Is an Inscription? Problems of Definition and Identity of an Historical Source.” Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik 183 (2012): 1–10. http://www.digitalmeetsculture.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Panciera-Inscription-ZPE-2012.pdf.
[Felle 2012] Felle, A. “Esperienze Diverse E Complementari Nel Trattamento Digitale Delle Fonti Epigrafiche: Il Caso Di EAGLE Ed EpiDoc,” 10:117–30. Collectanea Graeco-Romana. Studi E Strumenti per La Ricerca Storico-Giuridica. Torino, 2012.
[Feraudi-Gruénais 2010] Feraudi-Gruénais, Francisca, ed. “Latin on Stone: Epigraphic Research and Electronic Archives.” Lexington Books, May 20, 2010.
[3] These include The Epigraphic Database Rome, The Epigraphic Database Heidelberg, The Epigraphic Database Bari and Hispania Epigraphica Online.
[4] Among which, Ubi Erat Lupa, Last Statues of Antituiquities, Arachne and Petrae.
[5] A full list of all the partners involved in the EAGLE Network can be found on the project website.
[6] The literature which discusses the definition of epigraphy is vast, e.g. see Panciera 2012, Felle 2012 and Feraudi-Gruénais 2010.
[7] The EpiDoc Guidelines provide a full introduction to this specification of TEI.
[8] A dedicated workshop was run jointly between EAGLE members and CIDOC-CRM in March in Nicosia, which recomended the definition of a subset of CIDOC-CRM especially for epigraphy.
[9] The databases are converted from string to markup before going to the aggregator. Documentation and XSLTs can be found in the EAGLE GIT repository. The results of this process provide accurate markup in most cases when the underlying data is consistently following editorial conventions.
[10] The SNAP:DRNG project looks at these aspects of ancient world data and some of the EAGLE partners contribute to it.
[11] As in the model for ancient world data which the Pelagios and Pleiades projects implement for places annotation.
[12] These aspects have arised from the discussion among the EAGLE and the Europeana team during the aggregation process.
[15] An extra service for the needs of the epigraphic comunity is the result of the collaboration with the Perseids project. This allows a new translation to be peer reviewed before it is published. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has provided futher support (TIGLIO project) to the work required to establish a robust workflow for the provision of new translation of inscribed texts, which will focus on the Attic Inscriptions Online website.