Smart Digital Edition Management: A Blockchain Framework for Papyrology

The study and preservation of ancient texts presents unique challenges due to the degradation and damage these manuscripts often exhibit. Papyrology, specifically, relies on meticulous study and reconstruction of fragmented texts by experts. Current digital platforms for editing and publishing papyrological texts lack the ability to manage the complex components of critical editions while facilitating peer review. In our work we propose a novel framework utilizing blockchain and smart contracts to automate the storage and retrieval of multiple related editions of a text while ensuring contributions by multiple authors are recorded. The system architecture consists of a user interface for submitting editions, a smart contract that manages storage, the blockchain ledger which stores data locations, and the use of the decentralized storage platform, the Interplanetary Files System (IPFS). Experiments demonstrated the feasibility of the framework by storing 501 synthetic editions on IPFS and recording metrics for encoding, transmission time, blockchain transaction time, and transaction costs. We believe this novel framework could enable the advancement of digital papyrology through distributed peer review and allow for the integration of AI agents into papyrology. Future development of the proposed platform could significantly modernize digital edition management for papyrology and the humanities in general.