An overview of: Prosopographic digital data in classics (persons and names)
The here offered compilation forms the basis for an article within the Brill’s Companion to Roman Prosopography (Horster, M., Hurlet, F., Fower, R., Mathisen, R. edd., forthcoming 2025), on the topic of “Data Repositories and Sustainability: Their Significance for Prospographical Data Archives” by F...
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| Format: | Database Research Data |
| Language: | English |
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Heidelberg
Universität
2025-05-09
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| DOI: | 10.11588/DATA/AO0EPS |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Resolving-System, kostenfrei, Volltext: https://doi.org/10.11588/DATA/AO0EPS Verlag, lizenzpflichtig, Volltext: https://heidata.uni-heidelberg.de/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.11588/DATA/AO0EPS 
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| Author Notes: | Francisca Feraudi-Gruénais |
| Summary: | The here offered compilation forms the basis for an article within the Brill’s Companion to Roman Prosopography (Horster, M., Hurlet, F., Fower, R., Mathisen, R. edd., forthcoming 2025), on the topic of “Data Repositories and Sustainability: Their Significance for Prospographical Data Archives” by Feraudi-Gruénais, F. and Grieshaber, F. There is only a comparatively modest number of online-accessible digital collections concerning personal names from the ancient world, especially if we consider only the segment that concerns Roman names. Yet a detailed comparison of the databases, projects, portals and tools for this topic presents a very heterogeneous picture, making it difficult at first glance to gain an overview and so to evaluate their usefulness as a whole. As always, the reasons for this are complex and arise primarily from the different historical genesis of the data collections, but also from the variety of ways they are designed in terms of content, and the different kinds of ancient sources on which they are based. Other issues are the non-homogeneous origin and creation of the digital data (were they born digital or not?), the often thoroughly non-uniform project goals (genuinely prosopographic or not? relating more to persons or more to names?) and the variety of focuses chosen in date, geography or cultural regions; and also the degrees of digital depth pursued in metadata, inconsistency in including normed and/or controlled vocabularies and the selectively implemented allocation of unique person-IDs. Finally, a factor not to be underestimated is that time and funding for projects are usually limited, with effects on the afterlife of the data (is it active, paused, completed?). The here presented compilation therefore pursues two goals: It aims firstly to review the variety, characteristics and differences of the digital data archives on persons or personal names in the Roman empire that are currently well known and accessible online, and secondly to visualize at a glance the existing potentials and the needs for optimisation in the efforts made so far in the sphere of digital prosopographical data collections. |
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| Item Description: | Gesehen am 12.05.2025 |
| Physical Description: | Online Resource |
| DOI: | 10.11588/DATA/AO0EPS |