Digital and Practical Epigraphy (London Durham Bologna) 2022

Institute of Classical Studies, University of London, Department of Classics and Ancient History, Durham University & Department of History and Cultures, Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna.

Funded by 'Connectivity and Competition' (AH/R010943/1) and Durham University, in collaboration with the ENCODE Project.

Organisers: Katherine McDonald, Gabriel Bodard & Irene Vagionakis

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Workshop Syllabus

Monday 4th April: Introduction to Epigraphy and Reading Inscriptions

Morning

• What is epigraphy? (30 min) (Gabriel Bodard, Irene Vagionakis, Katherine McDonald)
• Introduction to Leiden conventions (20 min) (slides) (Gabriel Bodard, Irene Vagionakis)
• Skills needed by an epigraphist (30 min) (Gabriel Bodard, Katherine McDonald)
• Reading an inscription with raking light (6 min) (Katherine McDonald)
• Squeezes and squeeze making (13 min) (Katherine McDonald)
• Making a squeeze, demo (5 min) EXTERNAL VIDEO (Charalambos Kritzas, former Director of the Epigraphical Museum in Athens; Krateros Project video)
• Drawing inscriptions (12 min) (Katherine McDonald)

Afternoon

• 12pm: Welcome (live online and in person)
• 2pm: Guest lecture on historical illustration by Dr Matilde Grimaldi (live online)
• 3.30pm: Questions and trouble-shooting of exercises (live online and in-person)

Tuesday 5th April: Photogrammetry and Imaging

Morning

• Types of 3D scanning and imaging (slides) (10 min) (Alicia Walsh)
• Non-3D imaging methods (slides)(15 min) (Gabriel Bodard & Alicia Walsh)
• Types of 3D object (slides)(20 min) (Gabriel Bodard)
• Theory of photogrammetry (slides)(12 min) (Alicia Walsh)
• Photogrammetry software options (slides) (14 min) (Gabriel Bodard)
• Photography for photogrammetry (3 min) (Alicia Walsh)
• Walkthrough of photogrammetry with Metashape (11 min) (Alicia Walsh)
• Overview of Metashape interface (5 min) (Alicia Walsh)
• Introduction to outdoor photogrammetry (slides) (10 min) (Alicia Walsh)
• Outdoor photogrammetry field demo (3 min) (Valeria Vitale & Gabriel Bodard)
• Youtube tutorial by Samantha Porter on stitching together two halves of a model (EXTERNAL: 20 min)
• Editing your model in Meshmixer (11 min) (Alicia Walsh)
• Making Monsters in Meshmixer (20 mins) (Valeria Vitale, conference paper 2017)

Afternoon

• 2.30pm: Guest lecture by Aykan Akcay, “An introduction to the Photogrammetry and RTI capturing of worn inscriptions” (live online)
• 3.30–4.45pm: Q&A and troubleshooting (live online and in-person)

Wednesday 6th April: XML and Epidoc

Morning

• Origins, goals and contributions to EpiDoc (slides) (27 min) (Gabriel Bodard)

• Semantic markup example (slides) (9 min) (Irene Vagionakis)

• Rules of XML (slides) (27 min) (Elli Mylonas)

• Oxygen editing demo (XML template, Quickref, schema)

• Link for 30-day trial of Oxygen

• Introduction to Oxygen XML Editor (19 min) (Gabriel Bodard)

You may also find these worked examples useful:

• Latin inscription example in Oxygen (17 min) (Irene Vagionakis)
• Greek inscription example in Oxygen (34 min) (Gabriel Bodard)

Afternoon

• 2pm: Hands-on practice in Oxygen (live in-person and online)
• 3.30–4.45pm: Guest lecture: Dr Caroline Barron on forgeries (live, in person; can be watched online)

You can use the following videos in the practice session, as suit your interests.

• Abbreviations (slides) (8 min) (Irene Vagionakis)
• Complex lacunae (slide) (14 min) (Gabriel Bodard)
• Symbols (slides) (10 min) (Irene Vagionakis)
• Editorial corrections (13 min) (slides) (Gabriel Bodard)
• Fragments and sections of text (slides) (19 min) (Gabriel Bodard)
• Verse inscriptions (slides) (13 min) (Gabriel Bodard)

Thursday 7th April: More XML and Photogrammetry Practice

Morning

• MSDesc Quickref
• Description of object (slides) (9 min) (Irene Vagionakis)
• Description of hands, lettering and script (slides) (10 min) (Gabriel Bodard)
• Origin date (slides) (18 min) (Gabriel Bodard)
• Origin and locations of object (slides) (12 min) (Irene Vagionakis)

Afternoon

• 2pm: Trip to Old St Pancras Gardens for photogrammetry practice (or local equivalent, for remote participants)

Friday 8th April: Epidoc and EFES

Morning

• Displaying EpiDoc files using EFES (18 min) (Gabriel Bodard, Irene Vagionakis & Polina Yordanova)
• Authority lists (slides) (16 min) (Martina Filosa)
• Words and lemmatisation (slides) (18 min) (Gabriel Bodard)
• Names and persons (slides) (15 min) (Gabriel Bodard)

Afternoon

• 2pm: Photogrammetry feedback
• 3pm: Live Q&A and trouble-shooting
• 4–4.45pm: Feedback for us and end