Communicating Revealed Texts: Best Practices for Born-Digital Editions Using Enhanced Imaging

FAIN: HAA-293472-23

University of Iowa (Iowa City, IA 52242-1320)
Paul Chandler Dilley (Project Director: January 2023 to present)
William Brent Seales (Co Project Director: June 2023 to present)

The creation of a working group of scholars using non-invasive imaging methods to analyze ancient manuscripts.

Over the past two decades, much progress has been made in non-invasive imaging techniques to reveal unreadable text, especially in multispectral (MSI) imaging to bring out erased or faded writing, and in micro-CT, to reveal writing in unopened manuscripts. This grant will establish a working group of 13 scholars, curators, and metadata specialists who are currently using enhanced images of ancient manuscripts, from the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Herculaneum Papyri, the Living Gospel of Mani, and Old Nubian literature. Through a series of monthly Zoom meetings and a summer workshop at the University of Iowa Center for the Book, we will establish best practices for born-digital editions of texts using enhanced images, to show how transcribed text fits into the structure of an imaged manuscript, even if not visible to the naked eye, and to link editorial transcription choices to particular images, enabling others to make an informed, critical reading of these otherwise inaccessible writings.