| Databank of Eastern-European Egyptology |
Databank of Eastern-European EgyptologyIntroductionThe great advances in digital technology in the 1980s, brought computers into every sphere of our lives. Naturally they became a significant part of modern science. The latter statement applied principally to the physical sciences, which require complicated numeric operations. During the last decade the new technologies have also penetrated more traditional studies — the Humanities. Summarizing the results of the initial phases of this non-numerical analysis we note the growing number of electronic databases, catalogues and digital publications. One important peculiarity is worthy of mention — these technologies are mostly used for storing and publishing information. At the same time little attention is paid to the processing of data. The Databank of Eastern-European Egyptology is an example of an intelligent system, which allows not only the storage of information, but also the analysis of its contents. That makes it a really powerful research tool. The idea of such a system was developed by Drs. Maya M?ller (Museum of Cultures, Basel), who presented it at the Fifth International Congress of Egyptologists (Cairo, 1988) and Edward Loring, who developed the system architecture and logic. The idea came to life in the knowledge management system GALEXYS. With time it grew into an international project, in which 11 organizations of 7 countries are involved.
Collecting the DataGALEXYS was originally developed by E. Loring and M. M?ller in the Informatikprojekt der Basler Universit?tssammlungen (1991–1993) as a system for the management of museum collections. Virtually all databases adopted by museums are based on a table with a definite number of fields (flat files). These fields contain typical information — the name of an artifact, its inventory number, typology, material, dating, state of preservation, etc. Such a database is only an electronic substitute for traditional inventory books or card catalogues. At best, it can be used for generating administrative documentation, that makes the life of museum staff easier. However, the mission of the museum is not only preserving and exhibiting artifacts. It also includes scientific study of its collection. Using traditional museum databases one can only search the objects of the same type, made of the same material or in the same time, having the same provenance, etc. Real research requires more perfect search abilities — like finding the same iconography elements (poses, gestures, clothing, etc.), cultural or historical occurrences and text analyzes. GALEXYS successfully fulfils this job.
How it worksThe basic principle of data decomposition to provide building blocks for targeted integrational restructuring in our system is similar to the one, which became the base for the famous Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprach of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. It was worked out over a century ago and time proved its efficiency. Creating the dictionary the authors divided all available texts into sentences and sentences into words; each stage being accompanied by filling catalogue cards, which are stored in a large archive. The principle is hierarchical. Detailed documentation makes it possible to determine temporal changes of meaning or grammatical function of a word and its character in specific contexts. If needed, we can always jump to the sentence, in which this word occurs and then to the whole text; we can also do it in the reverse order. In our system an artifact, which consists of a number of elements and has specific attributes, is may be regarded as such a text, while elements and attributes of an object constitute its sentences and words. Thus, in describing an object, we have to define the contents of its text and then to divide the text into a hierarchy (cascade) of its parts and their parts and attributes. The description is represented as a multi-dimensionally integrated hierarchical component and attribute cluster of unlimited magnitude. In general such a description may be reminiscent of those written as free-text. However, free-text input into a database, lacking any sort of structural discipline, is practically lost for intelligent analysis. The primary advantage of our method is that no information is lost, because all descriptions are composed from a controlled and dynamically linked terminology. We can search any entity cluster and find all objects where any or all of its components are met. Hence, it is possible to analyze the iconography of an object, and of course to perform linguistic analysis of written documents. TerminologyNow we come to the question of how the smallest lexical units of information should be defined. Actually it is the question of terms that are used in descriptions. Each user of the Databank has to operate with the same terminology, otherwise a lot of data will be inaccessible because of redundancy and inconsistency. That is one of the most difficult problems. Egyptology being a relatively young science has not developed a comprehensive, normalized multilingual terminology. For many years scholars have puzzled over how to call this or that element, and consequently they use amorphous definitions, that are only clear in the context of their papers, or perhaps only to the authors themselves. Many generally accepted terms have different spellings and sometimes even different meanings. The attempt to work out a linear universal terminology is a kind of utopia as it would certainly be subjected to well founded criticism and never be accepted. However, there is a way out of this situation. A term is a lexical abstraction of an object, action or concept on the level of logical equivalence/symantic identity. A term is thus a lexical pointer, both to that from which it is abstracted and to all other terms abstracted from the same object at the same level. Terms usually refer to something that can described in a number of words or phrases. Such a description is a middle point virtually equal to the described object itself (element, event, occurrence, etc.). It is not so difficult to make a more or less objective description, which when used, allows everyone to understand the same thing. A term can have any number of synonyms in any number of languages. All of these share identity with the same central object, action or concept. This allows every scholar to use his/her own words (to which most individuals are very attached) without violating data integrity through inconsistency. Now we can build a model, in the center of which an object (=definition) is placed. It is equivalent to and linked with numerous synonyms in the same or in different languages and/or various spellings of the same term existing in one language. Each synonym is equal to the central concept, and thus to all other synonyms derived from the same object (peer-equality). Every one of them leads to the same goal («a rose by any other name…»). Solving the problem of multiple synonyms we can make a set of preferred terms for each language and thus preserve translingual data-integrity. Each user, irrespective of the terminological synonyms he uses, is able to enter and retrieve information with the desired, consistent results. Terminology is the base of our databank system. It is arranged in 15 Thesauri, containing terms on typology, iconography, material, chronological and geographical lists, etc. The system operates in two languages, German and English, while Russian, French and Italian terminology is being added. The system can be inverted for any available language, meaning that input and output can be in different languages. Any language which can be represented in a computer system can be added. The DataThe strength of the Databank depends on the amount of information stored in it. As the volume of information increases, so does the potential for obtaining precise descriptions and meaningful results. Since 1995 the Centre for Egyptological Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences has been working with the Egyptian collections kept in the museums of Russia and the post-Soviet republics. This work is carried out under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation with financial support of the Russian Foundation for Fundamental Research. The study and description of Ancient Egyptian antiquities kept in Russian collections began at the end of 19th century with the prominent Russian Egyptologist Boris A. Turaev, who visited most of the collections and published them in a series of articles between 1899 and 1912. However, since the Revolution of 1917, the location of many objects has changed. Numerous private collections were absorbed by state museums. Numerous objects were damaged or completely destroyed during World Wars I and II. In the 1980s Dr. Svetlana I. Hodjash undertook the second survey of Egyptian collections kept in the museums of the Soviet Union. The result of this study became the exhibition «Ancient Egyptian Monuments in the Museums of the USSR» Moscow, 1991) and the large «Catalogue of the Monuments of Ancient Egypt from the Museums of the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Bielorussia, Caucasus, Middle Asia and the Baltic States», written in collaboration with Prof. Oleg D. Berlev and published in Friburg in 1998. While giving due credit to much of this survey, it is very important to note that the scholars worked partly with photographs and text descriptions of objects which they had not personally seen. That led to inaccuracy in the study of some items. Many objects, because of their poor quality or state of preservation, were not catalogued at all. As well, some minor Egyptian collections were completely ignored. In sharp contrast to the above, the main principle of our work is careful examination of the collections in the museums, copying of inscriptions, making detailed descriptions and detailed photographs. During our examinations of museum collections we have revealed many pieces, which were either never published or considered to be lost. At present, the databank contains information on more than 10000 objects, kept in the museums of Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. The number of participants of the project grows yearly, and we are always open for cooperation. Further developmentThe software and information stored in the Databank is distributed between the participants of the project. Having a special agreement with the museums, we plan to publish the data in Internet to make it accessible to every scholar. S. Ivanov, E. Loring
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* The work on the project is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation |
