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Reuniting fragments, identifying scribes and characterizing scripts: the Digital Paleography of Greek and Coptic papyri.

Research Project
 | 
01.09.2018
 - 31.08.2022

Greek and Coptic papyri preserved in the sands of Egypt are one of our main sources for Classical and early Christian literature as well as for the ancient History of the eastern Mediterranean world from the Hellenistic period to the Middle Ages. However, the texts are often incomplete, broken accidentally during the course of time or intentionally, two small pieces being more valuable than a single larger one on the antiquities market. Palaeography, as the study of ancient writings, has two main fields of application: one is to identify the specific handwriting of one individual over several fragments. The second is to provide dating arguments in the absence of other criteria, Greek and Coptic scripts having evolved over time. The present research project aims to lay the foundation for an online interface through which papyrologists would be able to look for similar - or identical - handwritings to a given papyrus and typical samples of writings for a given period. To reach this ambitious goal, this project will first focus on three delimitated and complementary case studies: the papyri containing Homer's Iliad, the archive of Dioscorus of Aphrodito (6th c. A.D.) which is the richest archive of the Byzantine period and the Coptic archive of Papas which were found broken in a jar and thus are a real jigsaw puzzle. Greek and Coptic papyri preserved in the sands of Egypt are one of our main sourcesfor Classical and early Christian literature as well as for the ancient History of theeastern Mediterranean world from the Hellenistic period to the Middle Ages. However,the texts are often incomplete, broken accidentally during the course of time orintentionally, two small pieces being more valuable than a single larger one on theantiquities market. Palaeography, as the study of ancient writings, has two main fieldsof application: one is to identify the specific handwriting of one individual over severalfragments. The second is to provide dating arguments in the absence of other criteria,Greek and Coptic scripts having evolved over time. The present research project aimsto lay the foundation for an online interface through which papyrologists would be ableto look for similar - or identical - handwritings to a given papyrus and typical samplesof writings for a given period. To reach this ambitious goal, this project will first focuson three delimitated and complementary case studies: the papyri containing Homer'sIliad, the archive of Dioscorus of Aphrodito (6th c. A.D.) which is the richest archive ofthe Byzantine period and the Coptic archive of Papas which were found broken in a jarand thus are a real jigsaw puzzle.

Funding

Reuniting fragments, identifying scribes and characterizing scripts: the Digital Paleography of Greek and Coptic papyri.

SNF Ambizione / PRIMA (GrantsTool), 09.2018-08.2022 (48)
PI : Marthot-Santaniello, Isabelle.

Publications

Mohammed, Hussein Adnan, Marthot-Santaniello, Isabelle and Märgner, Volker (2019) ‘GRK-Papyri: A Dataset of Greek Handwriting on Papyri for the Task of Writer Identification’. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE): Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1109/icdar.2019.00121.

URLs
URLs

Pratikakis, Ioannis et al. (2019) ‘ICDAR 2019 Competition on Document Image Binarization (DIBCO 2019)’. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE): Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Available at: https://doi.org/10.1109/icdar.2019.00249.

URLs
URLs

Members (1)

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Isabelle Marthot-Santaniello

Principal Investigator