Wikidata:WikiProject Epigraphy

Welcome to WikiProject Epigraphy

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About

Our context

Being an epigraphist means that we are required to gain a whole range of skills, from when we undertake a survey to when we ensure that the work is understood by others. Different perspectives, a bit of linguistic, archaeology, geography, and, who knows, a bit of geology, perhaps. We’ve been studying the field, and the history of the field through a framework that sometimes is not that universal standard we thought. Then, we connect with other epigraphists who are tackling similar issues, but they’re using different terms..
Let’s start from the basics, for instance: what counts as an inscription? Does it have to be ancient? Does it have to be permanently carved? What about painted texts, graffiti, stamps, seals, coins, inscriptions on mountains rocks or false inscriptions? Should we use everywhere the classical scholarship terminology? And who decides where the boundaries lie? Perhaps the challenge is not to find always one universally valid definition, but to recognise that epigraphy encompasses a plurality of traditions, methods, materials, languages, periods, scholarly perspectives…let’s say habits. Discussion is where we would start, and, for reasons that will soon become clear, Wikidata feels like a safe place to begin.

What is Epigraphy?

Epigraphy is taught as the study of documents inscribed on durable materials. We would, however, add that by no means it belongs to a specific time and space of production or culture. Plus, it naturally sits at the intersection of many disciplines as it can be studied through archaeological context, geology, history, palaeography, linguistic, prosopography and many more.

The benefit of Wikidata for Epigraphy

And this interdisciplinary nature is supported by the way Wikidata is built. As a graph knowledge base that gathers human knowledge, Wikidata is the perfect tool for the interdisciplinarity that Digital Humanities seek. It keeps data connected, findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. The platform supports hundreds of languages, so anyone can edit and add to it in their own way. (Well, if you are willing to edit, create an account first!). And, as it lets people edit in real time, it also helps everyone talk about things more openly, and…interestingly, since anyone can add their thoughts in the ‘discussion’ section on every item and page.

The aims of the project

Let’s now share some key ideas about the purpose of this project.

1. Describe and catalogue epigraphic materials in Wikidata.
2. Share, interlink, and make epigraphic data FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable).
3. Expand the scholarly boundaries of Epigraphy: this project seeks to bring together diverse scholarly approaches and traditions, moving beyond the boundaries of classical scholarship and chronological or geographical frameworks.
4. Expand the discipline boundaries of Epigraphy: since existing resources often approach epigraphy from specialised perspectives, both inside Wikidata (like Archaeology, Antiquity, Testi Latini, IDEA projects or Altinum initiative) and outside (EDR, EDCS, RIB, AIO etc.) this project aims to create a shared space in which different disciplines, methodologies, traditions, and research perspectives can interact and be connected.
5. Promote multilingual access to epigraphic knowledge: the project responds to the urgent need for multilingual support in the epigraphic discipline. This is essential not only because expanding the geographical and chronological scope of epigraphy requires the inclusion of multiple linguistic traditions, but also because multilingualism is fundamental to making epigraphic knowledge more accessible, inclusive, and reusable across scholarly communities.

History of the project

The original plan for WikiProject Epigraphy was conceived during the activities of Testi Latini project, specifically from its final considerations about “Epigraphs and writings”.
The project subsequently developed thanks to the contributions of the community and continues to pursue its mission of expanding and improving its data model.
Over time, individual epigraphic initiatives have contributed to the development of epigraphic vocabularies in Wikidata by editing and creating items, as well as by requesting new properties that proved useful for representing epigraphic data. These contributions have responded both to the ways in which Epigraphy is represented outside Wikidata and to the specific needs of the platform itself. As the discipline has gradually taken shape on Wikidata through these individual initiatives, the time has now come to bring these efforts together and to develop a more coordinated approach to modelling Epigraphy, a baseline that can accommodate different needs while moving beyond the specific requirements of individual projects.
For this reason, a Schema is being developed to establish a baseline for data quality control and to make it easier to identify information that does not conform to a standardised structure. Establishing a common baseline, while still allowing room for specific distinctions within the model, is particularly important to ensure the consistency and effectiveness of queries.
From the workflow in the domain of cultural heritage it can be predicted that thousands of items of epigraphic editions are going to be created on Wikidata over the next years, therefore some coordination is necessary to monitor their creation and their quality.

Related WikiProjects

• Wikidata:WikiProject Antiquity
• Wikidata:WikiProject Archaeology
• Wikidata:WikiProject IDEA (regarding archaeological site of Dura-Europos (Q464266))