From stone to silicon: technical advances in epigraphy

W. Brent Seales, Christy Y. Chapman

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Through the annals of time, writing has slowly scrawled its way from the painted surfaces of stone walls to the grooves of inscriptions to the strokes of quill, pen, and ink. While we still inscribe stone (tombstones, monuments) and we continue to write on skin (tattoos abound), our quotidian method of writing on paper is increasingly abandoned in favor of the quick-to-generate digital text. And even though the stone-inscribed text of epigraphy offers demonstrably better permanence than that of writing on skin and paper—even better than that of the memory system of the modern computer (Bollacker in Am Sci 98:106, 2010)—this field of study has also made the digital leap. Today’s scholarly analyses of epigraphic content increasingly rely on high-tech approaches involving data science and computer models. This essay discusses how advances in a number of exciting technologies are enabling the digital analysis of epigraphic texts and accelerating the ability of scholars to preserve, renew, and reinvigorate the study of the inscriptions that remain from throughout history.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)129-138
Number of pages10
JournalInternational Journal on Digital Libraries
Volume24
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s).

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for crucial support.

FundersFunder number
National Science Foundation (NSF)
National Endowment for the Humanities
Andrew W Mellon Foundation

    Keywords

    • Digital humanities
    • Epigraphy
    • Technology

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Library and Information Sciences

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