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

115
<strong>in</strong>scriptions have not been thought of as archaeological material but as “the preserve of historians and
literary scholars” s<strong>in</strong>ce they are considered as “texts rather than artifacts,” a po<strong>in</strong>t also made previously
(Roueché 2009, Bodard et al. 2009).
Tupman argued that it would be highly desirable not only to l<strong>in</strong>k funerary <strong>in</strong>scriptions to images of the
monument on which they were found but also to then l<strong>in</strong>k these monuments to other objects found <strong>in</strong>
the same archaeological context. While Tupman granted that it made some sense that <strong>in</strong>scriptions,
pottery catalogs, and bone analyses be published separately (as they are separate discipl<strong>in</strong>es), she
contended that all data that were published should at least be l<strong>in</strong>ked to, and ideally be comb<strong>in</strong>ed with,
other data:
Specialists, therefore need to work to make their material available to others <strong>in</strong> a way that
permits their various forms of data to be comb<strong>in</strong>ed mean<strong>in</strong>gfully. This will be most effective if
undertaken collaboratively, so that shared aims and standards can be established. This does not
imply that there should be any dim<strong>in</strong>ution of expert knowledge or <strong>in</strong>formation <strong>in</strong> any of these
fields for the sake of mak<strong>in</strong>g it easier for others to digest; to do so would entirely miss the po<strong>in</strong>t
of the exercise. Rather, we should be seek<strong>in</strong>g ways of l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g these different types of
<strong>in</strong>formation <strong>in</strong> a rational and useful manner that not only <strong>in</strong>creases our own understand<strong>in</strong>g of
the data, but also enhances the way <strong>in</strong> which computers can process that data (Tupman 2010,
77).
Tupman thus encouraged the use and creation of collaborative standards and to make data both human
readable and mach<strong>in</strong>e actionable. While she suggested that perhaps Semantic Web technologies might
be useful <strong>in</strong> this regard, Tupman also proposed that the use of XML, and <strong>in</strong> particular EpiDoc, to
support the digital publish<strong>in</strong>g of <strong>in</strong>scription data would be highly beneficial toward achiev<strong>in</strong>g these
aims. After reiterat<strong>in</strong>g Gabriel Bodard’s (Bodard 2008) six transformational qualities of digital
publish<strong>in</strong>g, Tupman listed a number of advantages of us<strong>in</strong>g XML, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>corporat<strong>in</strong>g marked-up
texts <strong>in</strong>to databases, <strong>in</strong>terl<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g marked up <strong>in</strong>scriptions with other types of XML files, the ability of
researchers to add their own markup, and the possibility of us<strong>in</strong>g XSLT to produce different displays
of the same source file (e.g., for a beg<strong>in</strong>n<strong>in</strong>g student vs. an advanced scholar). Tupman concluded that
provid<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>scription data as EpiDoc XML files not only lessened editorial ambiguity (e.g., by
support<strong>in</strong>g the encod<strong>in</strong>g of variant read<strong>in</strong>gs) but also could allow researchers to use digital tools to sort
large amounts of data and thus ask their own questions of the materials
Advanced Imag<strong>in</strong>g Technologies for Epigraphy
While the above sections exam<strong>in</strong>ed some of the difficulties <strong>in</strong> provid<strong>in</strong>g sophisticated access to
<strong>in</strong>scriptions as digitized texts and of l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g between collections, other research has focused on the
challenges of advanced imag<strong>in</strong>g for <strong>in</strong>scriptions as archaeological objects. This section exam<strong>in</strong>es
several state-of-the-art approaches. 377
The eSAD project has recently developed a number of image-process<strong>in</strong>g algorithms for study<strong>in</strong>g
ancient documents that have also been made available to scholars through a portal (Tarte et al. 2009).
Us<strong>in</strong>g images of wooden stylus tablets from V<strong>in</strong>dolanda as their testbed, they developed algorithms
that helped rebalance illum<strong>in</strong>ation and remove wood gra<strong>in</strong>. This project then extended the data model
and <strong>in</strong>terface of the previously developed Virtual Research Environment for the Study of Documents
377 The focus on this section has been research that sought to provide better access to images of <strong>in</strong>scriptions (e.g., to enhance access to <strong>in</strong>scription text)
rather than on virtual reconstruction of the monuments or other objects on which they are found. For some recent work <strong>in</strong> this area, see Remond<strong>in</strong>o et al.
(2009).