Rome Wasn't Digitized in a Day - Council on Library and Information ...

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standardized collection of data. Rather than eng<strong>in</strong>eer<strong>in</strong>g applications on top of a data structure
that does not correspond well to the nature of the source material, we would do better to
construct ways of closely represent<strong>in</strong>g the physical and <strong>in</strong>tellectual aspects of the source <strong>in</strong>
digital form, and then f<strong>in</strong>d ways to build upon that foundation (Cayless et al. 2009).
As <strong>in</strong>dicated above, much of the earlier research that focused on <strong>in</strong>scriptions has <strong>in</strong>vestigated their
archaeological context. The arguments made by Cayless et al. emphasize the need for <strong>in</strong>scriptions to be
considered not just as simple data elements but also as complex digital objects with both a text
<strong>in</strong>scription and an archaeological context. For epigraphy databases to support the grow<strong>in</strong>g field of
digital epigraphy, Cayless et al. concluded that a mass of epigraphical data would need to be made
available and that better tools would also be needed to gather, analyze, and publish those data.
Despite Cayless et al.’s strong arguments <strong>in</strong> favor of greater adoption of EpiDoc, research by Bauer et
al. (2008) have countered that EpiDoc has some specific limitations, particularly <strong>in</strong> regard to the
development of philological critical editions. Accord<strong>in</strong>g to the project website, Hypereidoc 319 is an
“XML based framework support<strong>in</strong>g distributed, multi-layered, version-controlled process<strong>in</strong>g of
epigraphical, papyrological or similar texts <strong>in</strong> a modern critical edition.” Bauer and colleagues argued
that EpiDoc has limitations <strong>in</strong> terms of its expressive power and how <strong>in</strong>dividual results can be
comb<strong>in</strong>ed to form a cooperative product. They ma<strong>in</strong>ta<strong>in</strong>ed that their proposed Hypereidoc framework
provided an “XML schema def<strong>in</strong>ition for a set of annotation-based layers connected by an extensive
reference system, validat<strong>in</strong>g and build<strong>in</strong>g tools, and an editor on-l<strong>in</strong>e visualiz<strong>in</strong>g the base text and the
annotations” (Bauer et al. 2008). Their framework has been successfully tested by philologists work<strong>in</strong>g
on the Hypereides palimpsest. 320
The creation of digital transcriptions of epigraphic or papyrological texts, accord<strong>in</strong>g to Bauer et al.,
requires a model that supports multiple levels of annotation to a base text:
Annotations may mark miss<strong>in</strong>g, unreadable, ambiguous, or superfluous parts of text. They
should also quote <strong>in</strong>formation about the reason of the scholar’s decision e.g. other document
sources, well-accepted historical facts or advances <strong>in</strong> technology. Annotations also provide
meta-<strong>in</strong>formation about the author of the <strong>in</strong>dividual critical notes and expose the supposed
mean<strong>in</strong>g accord<strong>in</strong>g to the given scholar. It is of a primary importance that no <strong>in</strong>formation
should be lost dur<strong>in</strong>g the transcription process (Bauer et al. 2008).
Although they noted that the Leiden conventions are the most accepted set of rules and that EpiDoc did
meet some of their needs, they also argued that digital critical editions would require a base text layer
that always rema<strong>in</strong>ed untouched. They developed a text model for annotation, VITAM (Virtual Text-
Document Annotation Model), which conta<strong>in</strong>s “virtual text-documents as data items and annotation
sequences and virtual text documents’ merg<strong>in</strong>g as operations.” Their multilayered XML schema model
is based on TEI and EpiDoc and def<strong>in</strong>ed a “Base Text Layer” that stored just the orig<strong>in</strong>al text and its
physical structure, an “Order<strong>in</strong>g and Index<strong>in</strong>g Layer” that def<strong>in</strong>ed page order and their place <strong>in</strong>
codices, and one or more “Annotation Layers” that stored attached philological metadata. This model,
they argue, better supports the creation of collaborative critical editions:
Philologists can def<strong>in</strong>e their own Annotation Layers which may refer to only the Base Text
Layer or one or more Annotation Layers. They can add notes and annotations to the orig<strong>in</strong>al
319 http://hypereidoc.elte.hu/
320 The Hypereides palimpsest is part of the larger Archimedes palimpsest, and for some of this work on Hypereides, see Tchernetska et al. (2007). The
XML transcription of Hypereides can also be downloaded at http://hypereidoc.elte.hu/hypereides/downloads/hypereides-full.xml