The Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents
A short walk from the Ashmolean, the Centre for the research of Ancient Documents (CSAD) is making waves through the Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies on St Giles’. The interview has been set up for more information about new imaging technology which is being used to reveal previously illegible ancient inscriptions.
I’m here to meet up Dr Jane Massйglia, an Oxford alumna, former teacher that is secondary now research fellow for AshLI (the Ashmolean Latin Inscription Project). Jane actively works to encourage general public engagement with translating these ancient documents. There are many nice samples of this: calling out on Twitter when it comes to interested public to have a stab at translating these ancient inscriptions.
The second person I’m meeting today is Ben Altshuler, ‘our amazing RTI whizzkid.’ RTI, or Reflectance Transformation Imaging, is the software used to decipher inscriptions that are previously impenetrable. Ben Altshuler, 20, has been dealing with CSAD on his gap year prior to starting a Classics degree at Harvard later this year.
What is the remit of CSAD and exactly how achieved it turned out to be?
‘The centre buy essays online started about twenty years ago,’ Jane informs me. ‘It came to be away from several projects that are big original texts just like the Vindolanda tablets (a Roman site in northern England that has yielded the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain). There is suddenly a necessity to accommodate various projects that are different Classics taking a look at primary source material, and an expression that it was better joined up together. It makes sense: epigraphers, the individuals who study these ancient inscriptions – do things in a way that is similar similar resources and technology.
‘In regards to what we do now, the centre currently holds a number of projects like AshLI, the Corpus of Ptolemaic Inscriptions (CPI) plus the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names (LGPN).
‘This is how it began,’ she says and shows me a “squeeze”.
The ‘squeezes’ are stored in large boxes which can be stacked floor to ceiling in the centre.
‘Some of the work that is ongoing the centre is in sifting and analysing what is within these archives. The system that is new significantly more accessible – into the immediate future we’ll be able to view the squeezes on a computer and, when you look at the long term, there clearly was talk of searchable indexes of RTI images and integration with open source and widely used commercial platforms, like Photoshop.’
Ben, how did you turned out to be so a part of CSAD at 20?
‘In the previous couple of years of High School I took part in an history that is oral organised by the Classics Conclave and American Philological Association,’ Ben informs me. ‘While we were interviewing classicists at Oxford, Roger Michel, the top for the Conclave, saw a number of places when you look at the University and surrounding museums where technology that is new thrive. I happened to be offered a two-year sponsorship at the CSAD as an imaging expert in the fall following my graduation, and I also spent the final year building up technical expertise to supply the necessary support inside my operate in Oxford.
‘So I arrived to it through the classical language side. I quickly saw that to be very successful in epigraphy takes many years of experience. But with RTI you can master the technology in a amount that is relatively short of. I really could make a much bigger impact providing the skills that are technical processed images for established classicists to focus on using their language expertise.’
Ben shows me a video clip he’s made of the effects that are different can make in illuminating previously indecipherable texts (or, in this instance, a coin).
Here classist that is prominent Beard interviews Ben yet others at CSAD to learn more exactly how RTI will be used to make new discoveries possible within Humanities.
