This project aims at studying the Italian collections of Egyptian, Aegean, and Ancient Near Eastern inscribed artefacts. These collections will be considered in its entirity, focusing both on each single inscribed artefact belonging to a collection and on the history of the entire collection. The research will analyse unpublished and published inscribed objects as well as archive documents. The inscriptions will be catalogued, acquired through digital image techniques such as 3d scan and RTI, and studied from an epigraphic, philological, and archaeological perspective. Archival documents that may shed light on the origin and history of the single objects or the entire collection will be studied and set in in the general context of the XIX-XX centuries historical milieu when these collections were created.
The expected results of the project are, in the specific, the following:
a) the production of scientific editions of unpublished objects;
b) the updating of descriptions, transcriptions and general information for those inscriptions already published;
c) the creation of RTI / 3d images for future research;
d) the publication of studies regarding the collections' formation as well as the historical interest aroused on the antique market and the collectors' towards Egyptian, Aegean, and Ancient Near Eastern artefacts;
e) the attainment of a global vision on Aegean, Egyptian, and Ancient Near Eastern collections in Italy and their history.
The results of the project will be presented in the form of:
1) a series of monographs and collective publications;
2) a database with the catalogue of the collections that will include transcriptions, images, and archive information of the objects. Once completed, the database will be made available on-line through a dedicated website for future research.
The Aegean, Egyptian, and Ancient Near Eastern inscribed artefacts kept in the Italian collections have been the object of a seldom and random attention by scholars, albeit in a different degree. Except for large and renowned collections, such as those in the Musei Vaticani or the Museo Egizio of Turin, few of them have been studied in the specific and, in some cases, from a pure epigraphic point of view.
Although international web projects aspire to the global acquisition of cuneiform, Egyptian, etc. materials, for the time being they exclusively cover large collections, especially the North American, British and French ones, while leaving the digital acquisition of smaller collections to chance or occasion. Other databases and web projects are only text oriented and provide no information on the objects (for ex. Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae).
Almost complete for South Arabian and Aegean material, the catalogue and study of the Italian collections has a long, but fragmented history for Egyptian objects and a continuous need of update for Phoenician and Punic ones, due to the continuous discoveries along the Italian peninsula. As for cuneiform, interest in aspects of collecting and the history of collections has only emerged in recent years (see references above and below).
Although there are catalogues for some Italian collections through publications or web accessible databases, these catalogues are partial, since they focus on single collections or specific lot of objects within a collection, or are typologically focused.
Similarly, due to the fame of Egypt and the long history of Egyptomania, Egyptian collections are well known in the general, but less known in the particular and the interest in the formation of other Ancient Near Eastern collections has only developed in recent years.
The present project aims at filling this gap.
One of the starting points and main expected results of the project is the creation of a database that allows typological, linguistic, and epigraphic queries in the single corpus as well as in all the corpora. Being an effective support for research and education, it is not only fundamental to structure, manage, and fill in the database, but also to ensure its availability for a larger scientific public. Sensible data such as pictures of unpublished material will be made available on the web strictly according to the policy of the holding Institution. The database and all the relevant information will be made available through a web-portal where all the collections and their objects will be accessible to the scientific community and the large public. The archaeological and epigraphic data will be integrated in web-portal specifically dedicated to areas and periods (such as Database of Neo-Sumerian Texts; Cuneiform Digital Library; Digital Archive for the Study of pre-Islamic Arabian Inscriptions; The pa-i-to Epigraphic Project; etc.)
The results of the project will be published in a series of articles and monographs devoted to
a) the scientific detailed edition of the objects in their specificity - with all the archaeological, epigraphic, and philological data - and their relevance within the collection;
b) the study of specific collections or aspects of the antique market and general interest towards Aegean, Egyptian, and Ancient Near Eastern artifacts in Italy.
The members of each research unit will publish independently the results and the corpora that are the object of their research. All the members of the project will participate in the publication of studies on large collections keeping objects from more than one area of research. In particular, two monographs will present the general and common results of the project. The first one will be devoted to the major collections, their histories, and their objects. The second one will be devoted to the history of the antique market in Italy and dismembered collections (Borgia, Kircher, etc.).
Students of all levels (MA, BA, PhD) will be involved in different phases of the project and will learn not only to use the instruments and take advantage of the skills of the staff, but also to continue the discussion and the development of the methods, perspectives, and topics proposed in this project. Didactic tools that allow students to develop skills on epigraphy, data acquisition and elaboration will be created as well.
The documentation (RTI and HDR photographs and 3D virtual models) is a crucial instrument for archiving and preserving needs. The availability of high-resolution copies will drastically reduce the need for direct study, autopsy, and handling, and therefore it will limit the risk of damage.
With the permission of the institutional trustees, solid reproductions of some objects from the 3D virtual model will be printed in order to be used for research and didactic purposes. These copies might be used for scientific needs and for exhibitions in museum galleries as well.