Dr Dirk Obbink
Digital Equipment and Database Enhancement for Impact (DEDEFI)
Work on a large collection of Graeco-Roman manuscripts on papyri held at the Sackler Library, Ashmloean Museum, Oxford has already been underway for 100 years, but only a small fraction of the manuscripts have been transcribed.
The papyri, recovered from the Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus in the 20th century, are written in Greek, and many of the manuscripts have not been read for over a thousand years. Those that have been transcribed include amazing finds such as fragments of a previously unknown ‘lost’ gospel, which describes Jesus Christ casting out demons, lost masterpieces that went missing during the medieval period including: the lost poetry of Sappho, the lost comedies of Menander and the lost plays of Sophocles. There are also personal documents offering insights into people’s lives – the grandmother Sarapias in 127 AD, asking that her daughter be brought home so she can be present at the birth of her grandchild, or details of a loan for 9000 silver denarli taken out by Aurelius the sausage maker.
The project team at Oxford University are faced with a problem, however. There are only a small number of specialists available to work on the manuscripts, and growing public interest means they are receiving increasing numbers of enquiries about the collection. Dr Dirk Obbink, who is leading the project, adopted an approach, previously only used by astrophysicists, to harness this public interest, and transform the way ancient texts are transcribed, deciphered and understood.
Over the previous 10 years AHRC funding had enabled digital images of the manuscripts to be captured, enabling previously undecipherable texts to be read. Further funding from the AHRC meant these images could now be made available for the public to transcribe. Then using scientific methods and techniques pioneered by the astrophysicists of statistical weighting and analysis the results could be verified, then checked by specialists. This would broaden public access for the ancient texts without reducing the quality of transcription. As a result, the Ancient Lives project now invites anyone who wants to make a contribution tor the research to use the internet to browse the manuscripts and transcribe suitable examples using an on-screen keyboard, or help in cataloguing them by using an online measuring tool.
The ancientlives.org website went live at the beginning of August and by the end of September 150,000 users had already logged in transcriptions and measurements of the manuscripts. As well as experts in transcription, there were those with an interest in social history, ancient history, the bible and Homer, as well as school teachers, parents and many students who having learnt the Greek alphabet at school were now transcribing letters. The interest from schools has led to Dr Obbink being invited to Headington Girls School in Oxford and other local schools to talk to the students who are thinking about or beginning learning Greek and Latin. The project has also received major media coverage world-wide, and has attracted attention in schools in America and Japan. The website has been translated so it includes Modern Greek and Polish versions, and German and Dutch versions are on the way.
Public engagement on this scale has not been without its problems though. In the early stages there was some scepticism from senior academics who felt that public participation would dilute the results of the research and that the transcriptions should be done by the specialists. If offering advice to others looking at involving the public in their research in a similar way Dr Obbink suggests ‘establishing a panel of experts from the beginning of the project to ensure they are involved, can provide expertise and support to the project.’
Dr Obbink said: ‘This effort is pervaded by a spirit of collaboration. We aim to transcribe as much as possible of the original papyri, and then identify and reconstruct the text. No single pair of eyes can see and read everything. From scientists and professors to school students and ancient enthusiasts, everyone has something to contribute – and gain.’