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of multil<strong>in</strong>gual data, and “<strong>in</strong>telligent retrieval of heterogeneous materials”; where the use of the Web
will allow for comprehensive data access (different levels of users), <strong>in</strong>teroperability (TEI P5), and
persistency (URIs and persistent identifiers), user model<strong>in</strong>g, and the creation of a shared workspace;
and where the “eResearch environment” provides access to different material types, sophisticated data
model<strong>in</strong>g, encod<strong>in</strong>g, and visualization and extensive l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g between different digital projects (Vertan
2009).
As part of their collaborative environment, Teuchos also plans to create a shared workspace that
<strong>in</strong>cludes a forum and to support various comment<strong>in</strong>g and version<strong>in</strong>g features for different materials.
Perhaps the greatest challenge listed by Vertan, however, was the need to manage both multil<strong>in</strong>gual
and heterogeneous data that <strong>in</strong>cluded different data types such as semistructured data found <strong>in</strong> XML
and TEI files, high-resolution TIFF images, graphics (for watermarks), and research materials stored as
PDF or Word documents. The semistructured documents also had vary<strong>in</strong>g levels of semantic depth,
and there were different types of multil<strong>in</strong>guality with<strong>in</strong> one document (e.g., Greek, Lat<strong>in</strong>, and German
<strong>in</strong> one manuscript), across documents (there are five official languages for the project: German,
French, English, Italian, and Spanish), and with<strong>in</strong> term<strong>in</strong>ologies. The Teuchos project wants to allow
navigation across different data collections, and they are implement<strong>in</strong>g various Semantic Web
solutions. This <strong>in</strong>cludes “semantic descriptions of stored objects” us<strong>in</strong>g RDF triples, develop<strong>in</strong>g
ontologies for each type of data collection, mapp<strong>in</strong>g “multil<strong>in</strong>gual lexical entries” onto this ontology,
and then support<strong>in</strong>g ontological search<strong>in</strong>g.
Manag<strong>in</strong>g all of these data <strong>in</strong>volves the creation of complicated digital objects <strong>in</strong> Fedora that have
seven data streams: bibliographic details (stored <strong>in</strong> DC), semantic descriptions of objects and
relationships with other objects (RDF), codicological descriptions (XML), l<strong>in</strong>guistic <strong>in</strong>formation
(XML), layout details (XML), transcriptions (text file), and image data (TIFF files). The current
Teuchos implementation not only makes use of Fedora but also uses AJAX for the client-server
application and image viewer. Vertan concluded that the Teuchos platform could illustrate the potential
of Semantic Web technologies for real humanities problems as well as demonstrate the importance of
develop<strong>in</strong>g solutions for multil<strong>in</strong>gual content. In addition, Vertan asserted how “multil<strong>in</strong>gual problems
are <strong>in</strong>creased because of the lack of tra<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g data and computational l<strong>in</strong>guistics tools for old languages,
especially ancient Greek.” Similar criticisms were offered by Henriette Roued, who noted the lack of
Ancient Greek knowledge bases for use with the DUGA prototype.
Prosopography
The discipl<strong>in</strong>e of prosopography is “the study of <strong>in</strong>dividuals” and, <strong>in</strong> terms of ancient history, “is a
method which uses onomastic evidence” or the study of personal names “to establish (i) regional
orig<strong>in</strong>s of <strong>in</strong>dividuals and (ii) family connections.” 529 Many sources can be used for prosopography,
<strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g narrative texts, adm<strong>in</strong>istrative records, letters, and <strong>in</strong>scriptions, among others. The study of
prosopography has thus been closely l<strong>in</strong>ked to epigraphy <strong>in</strong> particular. This section looks at several
recent articles and research projects that have <strong>in</strong>vestigated the use of digital techniques <strong>in</strong> creat<strong>in</strong>g
prosopographical databases.
529 "prosopography" Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World. Ed. John Roberts. Oxford University Press, 2007. Oxford Reference Onl<strong>in</strong>e. Oxford
University Press. Tufts University. 4 May 2010.