Assessing Digitization Strategies for Mesopotamian Cylinder Seals: A Website for Critical Analysis and Exploration

FAIN: FEL-289813-23

Elizabeth Ann Knott
College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA 01610-2395)

Research and writing leading to a web-based publication analyzing digitization strategies for Mesopotamian cylinder seals and other 3D historical objects.

Mesopotamian cylinder seals are one of the most important categories of objects for the study of the ancient world, but they are also notoriously difficult to document. Digitization offers an apparent solution, representing seals online through high resolution photographs, digital scans, 3D images, and more. Myriad digitization options, however, have begun to stymie research: collections and projects take individual approaches, leaving audiences with a confusing array of dissimilar images that cannot be easily compared across platforms. The proposed website responds to this problem by assessing current digitization strategies. Including six thematic essays on the problems of representation, a discovery platform that invites users to interact with different kinds of images, and a set of resources for collection managers, researchers, and teachers, the website invites a more thoughtful and standardized approach to the digitization and study of cylinder seals.

Associated Products

Digitization as Interpretation: A View from the Yale Babylonian Collection Seal Digitization Project (Book Section)
Title: Digitization as Interpretation: A View from the Yale Babylonian Collection Seal Digitization Project
Author: Elizabeth Knott
Editor: John Frey
Editor: Rubina Raja
Abstract: Digitization is an act of interpretation in a fundamental and all-encompassing way. In the process of digitizing, we create new (online) archives that will be subject to future assessment. Reflecting on a Seal Digitization Project at the Yale Babylonian Collection (New Haven, CT), this essay unveils some hidden biases that came with the photographic documentation of cylinder and stamp seals in a university collection. It identifies three consequences of systematized digitization practices – erasure, anonymity, and the reification of an authoritative ‘curatorial voice’. It is suggested that these challenges extend beyond the digitization of artifacts to the digitization of legacy data. The essay therefore seeks to offer several cautions for the field of archive archaeology.
Year: 2024
Primary URL: https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9782503611747-1
Primary URL Description: Publisher's Website
Access Model: subscription only
Publisher: Brepols
Book Title: Trends in Archive Archaeology: Current Research on Archival Material from Fieldwork and its Implications for Archaeological Practice
ISBN: 978-2-503-6117

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