The sigillographic objective: Two of the three collections have been entirely edited and are now ready for publication; the third one (from the British Library-BL), is still being prepared.
The digital objective was the creation of a new methodology. During the first year (2015-2016) the Fellow was introduced to an entirely new field of study at KCL, taking courses in Web Technologies, Digital text editing and publishing, Spatial humanities and Digital cultural heritage. He also received constant tutoring/monitoring from his supervisor, Dr Tassos Papacostas, and from Prof. Charlotte Roueché (KCL) and Dr Gabriel Bodard (Institute of Classical Studies, University of London) to introduce him to EpiDoc. Pr Roueché and Dr Bodard also encouraged the development of NUDS (Numismatic Description Standard - American Numismatic Society) and SigiDoc. In addition to this informal, but indispensable tutoring, the Fellow attended a 5-day EpiDoc Workshop in London (April 2016), for formal training. (This all covered Workpackage 1).
On this basis, the Fellow developed the ‘digital infrastructure’ necessary for the scholarly digital edition of Byzantine seals in XML:
- A formal editorial structure based on NUDS, adapted to the needs of sigillography;
- The associated editorial tools, based on EpiDoc;
- A new protocol for the description of iconography, one of the most challenging aspects of this project;
- Categories for tagging and indexing the legends, based on EpiDoc.
These are the requirements for publishing a sustainable corpus, rather than a rapidly outdated database.
This was the main part of the Workpackage 2 and it has been successfully achieved.
Dissemination:
Academic: In June 2016 he Fellow organised a Digiseal workshop in London, with colleagues from France, Germany and the UK, to examine his proposed schema and suggest amendments. He has been presenting the project at different stages, particularly to the Institute for Byzantine Studies, Paris. Training sessions are planned in Paris, Köln, and in London/Oxford. The Fellow will create an online blog to share materials and receive feedback.
Museums: Although delayed by changes in personnel, careful discussions led to an agreement with the British Library for an eighteen-month collaboration (beginning in March 2017), for the study and publication of their collection of Byzantine seals. This material will be published online as an entirely new part of the BL catalogue, providing a ‘simplified’ version, intended to be useful both to the general public and to expert users, combining detailed scholarship and wider dissemination.
Public: the already mentioned collaboration with the BL is crucial, since it is a condition of the agreement between the Library and the Fellow that the BL catalogue points directly to the Fellow’s scholarly online edition, thus giving the work extraordinary visibility, and giving the public access to material which has been very hard to access.
Another main objective of this fellowship concerned the career development of the Fellow: this objective has been fully achieved, since he has been appointed as ‘maître de conférences’ in Byzantine History.
Outputs: a pilot version of the project is planned for Spring 2017. The proposed formal publication was delayed by changes at the BL, but is now under contract. The Fellow’s blog will appear shortly.
