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Transforming the Tablet: Digital Approaches to Ancient Text and Artefact

Module description

This module introduces you to the process of digital editing and semantic searching, and how these can change the way we conduct research on the ancient world. Beginning with the digital editing of ancient textual primary sources, the module considers the editorial process involved in dealing with texts that are often fragmentary or complex. It addresses annotation methods and questions of resource design, including theoretical debates about statistical and symbolic approaches to semantic search. You may choose to use texts in the original language or in translation: no prior knowledge of an ancient language is required.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The aim of the module is to provide you with an introduction to digital editing and analysis of ancient texts. It will focus specifically on two areas: text encoding for digital editions, and ‘sembanking’ for semantic and syntactic analysis. You will receive a grounding in the basic principles of each approach, be introduced to a set of case-studies and examples, and be guided in hands-on experience of carrying out your own text encoding and semantic annotations. Throughout the module you will be encouraged to reflect critically on the methods used and the results obtained.

The creation of a digital edition of an ancient text involves a multi-stage editorial process, including transcription, expanding abbreviations, supplying missing text, identifying entities within the texts, and establishing metadata (it may also include the creation of indices and authority lists and the design of a custom interface). To make our texts usefully machine-readable as well as human-readable, we must encode our texts according to a set of shared standards, to make it possible for different people and projects to exchange data about those texts and make use of them in their research. Taking examples from ancient inscriptions, you will learn how to analyse the structure and content of a set of texts, and to encode them according to the current international standard, EpiDoc XML. You will then transform your encoded texts into HTML files for browsing and searching. During this section of the course you will learn how to encode different readings of a text as well as how to approach fragmentary or visually complex texts.

The availability of richly annotated ‘treebanks’ has made it possible to use statistical and quantitative methods to study the syntax of ancient languages. Complementary efforts are now being made to bring linguistic semantics under the same perspective. One important development is the creation of WordNets for Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit, which take advantage of a common pool of machine-readable semantic descriptors (synsets, semfields) to define the senses of words and their relations. ‘Sembanking’ allows texts to be annotated with different kinds of semantic information from the WordNet, so that researchers can take advantage of computational techniques to study the meanings of ancient texts (as well as their grammatical features) within a unified framework. In this module, you will be familiarized with the Latin and Greek WordNets along with Cylleneus, a meaning-based search engine for electronic corpora of Greek and Latin. You will gain hands-on experience of curating the WordNets, helping you to understand how language data is structured and represented in this framework. In addition, you will learn to use Cylleneus to carry out complex meaning-based searches of ancient literature. No prior technical knowledge is needed or assumed, however some familiarity with programming languages would be beneficial.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Understand the role of text encoding and sembanking for the analysis of ancient texts
• 2. Identify structural aspects of ancient texts and the entities within them

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Apply skills in specific software techniques for creating, querying and displaying data
• 4. Critically engage with the impact of digital technologies in a specific domain (the humanities)

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Gain competence in specific digital techniques for analysing and disseminating textual data
• 6. Critically engage with the impact of two digital technologies in the domain of ancient-world materials

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

The course is comprised of two core sections covering the main themes of text encoding and sembanking. Both sections are composed of:

• a theoretical introduction to the basic concepts
• a series of case studies looking at how these concepts are applied in practice
• hands-on practical sessions in which you will apply these approaches to a specific set of texts. The introductory and concluding lectures will cover broader themes about digital approaches to the humanities.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Monica Berti (2019). "Historical Fragmentary Texts in the Digital Age." In ed. Berti, Digital Classical Philology: Ancient Greek and Latin in the Digital Revolution, pp. 257–276. Available: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110599572-015
• Franz Fischer (2019). "Digital Classical Philology and the Critical Apparatus." In ed. Berti, Digital Classical Philology: Ancient Greek and Latin in the Digital Revolution, pp. 203–219. Available: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110599572-012
• Laura Löser (2014), “Meeting the Needs of Today’s Audiences of Epigraphy with Digital Editions.” In Orlandi, Santucci et al., Information Technologies for Epigraphy and Cultural Heritage. Proceedings of the First EAGLE International Conference. Rome. Pp. 231–254. Available: http://www.eagle-network.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Paris-Conference-Proceedings.pdf#5f
• Roberto Rosselli Del Turco (2016). "The Battle We Forgot to Fight: Should We Make a Case for Digital Editions?" In Digital Scholarly Editing: Theories and Practices, M. J. Driscoll and E. Pierazzo (eds.). Pp. 219-238. Available https://www.openbookpublishers.com/htmlreader/978-1-78374-238-7/ch12.xhtml#_idTextAnchor029
• Sahle, Patrick (2016). "What is a Scholarly Digital Edition?" In Digital Scholarly Editing: Theories and Practices, M. J. Driscoll and E. Pierazzo (eds.). Pp. 19-39. Available: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/htmlreader/978-1-78374-238-7/ch2.xhtml#_idTextAnchor009

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• EpiDoc: https://sourceforge.net/p/epidoc/wiki/Home/  

Key words search

Digital Humanities, Classics, Ancient History