About Papyri.info
The Papyri.info portal is the most comprehensive resource for accessing and studying ancient papyrus texts. Its primary goal is to bring together various collections of papyrus texts and make them accessible to researchers worldwide. The collection comprises transcriptions that are encoded using EpiDoc, a specialized XML schema derived from TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) specifically designed for representing ancient inscriptions and papyrus documents.
The content of the platform, which includes the text of the papyri and their associated metadata, primarily comes from the aggregation of existing databases. Papyri.info aggregates material from the Advanced Papyrological Information System (APIS), Duke Databank of Documentary Papyri (DDbDP), Heidelberger Gesamtverzeichnis der griechischen Papyrusurkunden Ägyptens (HGV), Bibliographie Papyrologique (BP), and depends on close collaboration with Trismegistos, for rigorous maintenance of relationship mapping and unique identifiers. Work is in progress to incorporate content from the Arabic Papyrological Database (APD) as well.
However, user contributions also play a significant role. Individuals have the opportunity to register, submit new texts and metadata, and edit existing entries. These submissions undergo an editorial vetting process to ensure adherence to scholarly standards.
Papyri.info’s Structure
The platform is structured into two main sections: the Papyrological Navigator and the Papyrological Editor.
All of the content is openly accessible through the Papyrological Navigator, a navigable and searchable section that is the user interface of the database where encoded texts are stored. The platform offers advanced search capabilities, allowing users to search for specific papyrus texts based on criteria such as keywords, authors, dates, and locations. Users can conduct text searches throughout the database, allowing for research into parallel texts and contextual data. The Papyrological Navigator incorporates the Checklist of Editions, which serves as a comprehensive inventory of papyrological editions and tools. This checklist also functions as a reference for standard abbreviations commonly employed in the field.
Additionally, Papyri.info supports editing and contributions from the scholarly community through the Papyrological Editor, the implementation of the SoSOL editing and workflow management tool created by the Integrating Digital Papyrology project. Scholars can submit corrections, transcriptions, translations, and annotations to enhance the accuracy and completeness of the available texts. Encoding on the platform is collaborative: qualified users can register and contribute to edit documents, submit documents for publication, publish new documents and collaborate with other users. A committee of experts evaluates all submissions before publication.
Editing is made accessible to scholars that are unfamiliar with mark-up languages thanks to the implementation of Leiden+, a tag-lite system that closely resembles the Leiden conventions and is automatically converted into XML, for reusability purposes, through the XSugar routine.
The XML schema used for Papyri.info is the one defined by the EpiDoc project for encoding ancient epigraphs, which in turn is based on the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) guidelines that define the XML standard for representing texts in digital format.
Resources:
About Papyri.info: https://papyri.info/docs/about
SoSOL development documentation: http://papyri.github.io/documentation
Bibliography:
[Vannini, Lucia. "Review of papyri.info." RIDE 9 (2018). doi: 10.18716/ride.a.9.4]{.mark}
Reggiani N. (2017), Digital Papyrology I: Methods, Tools and Trend, Berlin/New York (see [https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110547474/html]{.underline});