Description

The Cabinet-CIS is known for publishing two monumental series through the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum and the Répertoire d’épigraphie sémitique. Those compiling these works were sent paper mâché squeezes of the inscriptions in those volumes and in some cases photographs along with detailed descriptions. The collection holds an estimated 10,000+ paper mâché squeezes of Semitic inscriptions from the Near East, North Africa, and the Mediterranean. In some cases these squeezes are of inscriptions which are now lost or inaccessible (due to their location in politically contested regions). Additionally, the collection holds hundreds of original objects and dozens of dossiers of many of the field’s most important figures, such as that of Charles Clermont-Ganneau. Unfortunately, the collection is only loosely organized into boxes and cupboards, for which a short inventory had been compiled.

The database includes record entries where all necessary information about an object in the collection can be stored, including metadata, text, and translation. Each entry includes mapping a timeline features for the object along with additional media storage that can be linked to the object.

The ultimate objective was to initiate the process of digital preservation of the squeezes and other artifacts. To achieve this, I solicited the support of Angelos Barmpoutis of the Digital Worlds Institute and Eleni Bozia of the Classics Department at the University of Florida, whose Open Source Digital Epigraphy software proved to be an ideal application for our needs. By using scans from a flatbed scanner or raking light photographs one can easily render 3D scans of the squeezes. An example of AIBL-CIS Dos. 12.01.01 “Inscription royale d’Idalion” (446 BCE = RÉS 453; squeeze made in 1887) can be found here.

Manipulating the photograph using the Digital Epigraphy’s user interface produces the best known available photograph of the inscription.