Digital projects in epigraphy. Research needs, technical possibilities and funding problems

In the last decades, big steps have been made towards a more and more complete digitization of texts and images of the ancient Greek and Latin inscriptions, but we can’t say that all the research needs of the academic community have been completely met: on one side there are very large repositories with a low level of content curation, whose use requires attention and a constant check of the original sources; on the other side there are “smaller” projects, as the Epigraphic Database Bari (EDB: http://www.edb.uniba.it/), the Epigraphic Database Heidelberg (EDH: https://edh-www.adw.uni-heidelberg.de/home), the Epigraphic Database Roma (EDR: www.edr-edr.it), and Hispania Epigraphica Online (HEp: http://eda-bea.es/), with a wider and richer set of metadata, that are not fully complete yet. The aggregator created by the European project EAGLE (Europeana network of Ancient Greek and Latin Epigraphy: www.eagle-network.eu), that has made searchable through a single portal most of the existing epigraphic databases, is still playing a very important role even after the end of the official funding: new epigraphic content has been uploaded both by traditional partners of the consortium, and by new content providers. The constant update of the server, and the mainteinence of the services created in the framework of the EAGLE project are ensured, at the moment, by the International Digital Epigraphy Association (IDEA: https://www.eagle-network.eu/about/who-we-are/), but a more institutional support, recognizing the importance of this activity, would be necessary to face the problem of the long term preservation of data and of the sustainability of this and other ongoing projects. In the meanwhile, a self-organized digital epigraphy community known as epigraphy.info (http://epigraphy.info/) is working, through periodical meetings, to build a more dynamic system to publish, archive, encode and search ancient inscriptions, since the only way to face this kind of problems is a strong spirit of cooperation among scholars, with frequent and fruitful exchanges of ideas, knowledge and information.