Epigraphy and Museography : Digital Edition and Cultural Mediation of the Louvre Collection of Greek Inscriptions – E-PIGRAMME

We will exploit all the possibilities offered by both the text encoding standard EPIDOC / TEI / XML, but by integration into a «informational ecosystem« (Marin Dacos), formed by the many metadata and documentation gathered within a database that may be displayed simultaneously on the screen.
The challenge is to create a- prototypal edition with a user friendly interface optimized for the consultation, display, comparison and document handling on the screen.

The program closely associates research, training and valorisation. It is based on a strong partnership and proven expertise, bringing together three complementary objectives that involve different types of publics. The expected results are of several kinds: 1/Allow the visitors coming to the Louvre to understand the inscriptions presented in Greek epigraphy Gallery by giving them access to texts, translations and comments . 2/Be innovative compared to a «state of the art« which has no editorial reference model in the specific domain of epigraphical digital publication. 3/Develop the e-learning of Greek epigraphy by developing methods and digital learning tools based on the variety of examples provided by ± 1000 Greek inscriptions of the Louvre that offer representative samples of the large variety of ancient inscriptions. This program is also illustrated by an international partnership with the U.S. Epigraphy Project conducted by John Bodel (Brown University, Providence RI) and developed the Perseus Project at Tufts University (Medford, Massachusetts). Il also receive the support of DARIAH -EU, the European Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and Humanities.

The scholarly disciplines such as Epigraphy and History of ancient Art have their full place in the dynamics of Digital Humanities. They allow the flow of data and the exchange of knowledge on an unprecedented scale and also permit to address to other publics than specialists alone. This project develops a protocol for epigraphical digital edition associated with analysis of monuments. It shapes the gradual development of an online digital library of Greek inscriptions which may gather large corpus of inscriptions published since the nineteenth century by the French School of Archaeology at Athens under the auspices of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres.

Already no production

The collection of Greek inscriptions preserved in the Louvre Museum was set up at random by acquisitions, seizures, grants and transfers since the time of Louis the 14th. It includes some 600 documents distributed over about 10 centuries, from the sixth century BC to fourth century AD. Given the chronological, geographical and thematic variety of these texts and the intrinsic originality of many of their supports - stelae, architectural elements, statues and other votive objects, the scientific and patrimonial interest of this set is unquestionable. But it is also a quite ideal sample in order to produce an innovative prototypal edition that may benefit from the visibility provided simultaneously by several linked websites, intended for different audiences and purposes, and by a new presentation of part of the collection in the Museum.The E-PIGRAMME (Epigraphy and Museography: Digital Publishing and Cultural Mediation of the Collection of Greek inscriptions in the Louvre) Program that we present today to the ANR is the « Product Launch Phase », enriched with new dimensions, of a project which was submitted to the international jury of the Institut Universitaire de France and endorsed at the end of 2009 by the appointment of Michele Brunet to the IUF as a Senior member. The partnership that is formed at the intersection of Philology, Art History, Archeology and Ancient history to carry out this digital publication and new museography brings together two research laboratories, UMR 5189 History and Sources of the Ancient world (HiSoMA), Coordinator, and UMR 8210 Anthropology and History of the Ancient world (ANHIMA) along with the Department of Greek Roman and Etruscans Antiquities at the Louvre Museum (Dager) and the French School at Athens (EfA). Our common approach is based on two convictions: the scholarly disciplines such as Epigraphy and History of ancient Art have their full place in the dynamics of Digital Humanities. They allow the flow of data and the exchange of knowledge on an unprecedented scale and also permit to address to other publics than specialists alone. But digital technology in scientific publishing reconfigures the entire editorial chain and enforces the academic know-how to be translated into new professional processes. This is why innovations induced by these electronic tools are the best opportunity for developing a research about technology and the shape to be given to digital publication of Greek inscriptions. In fact, the use of this new form of publication and new way of dissemination gives the opportunity to consider the epigraphical documents in all their dimensions, no longer separating the texts from the monuments and from the contextual evidence, considering them as Visible Words and Works of Art intended to be seen as well as read. This experimental research is necessarily collaborative, and will be conducted under the supervision of an advisory board in which the (small) community of Digital Classicists will therefore be well represented. But it is also essential to connect this research program with scholarly training, linking it directly to the network of experts and international collaborations that it contributes to create. For this purpose, the French School at Athens offers a very adequate frame. Indeed, the EfA provides guarantee of some continuity beyond the end of the program ; it gives also institutional validation to the project and encourages further developments for digital publication of Greek inscriptions by initiating a conference designed to lay foundations for a real international collaboration in this academical field.