“The Ancient Egyptian Demonology Project: Second Millennium BCE” was intended and funded as a three-year project (2013-2016) to explore the world of Ancient Egyptian demons in the 2nd millennium BC. It intends to create a classification and ontology of benevolent and malevolent demons. Whereas ancient Egyptians did not use a specific term denoting “demons”, liminal beings known from various other cultures such as δαίμονες, ghosts, angels, Mischwesen, genies, etc., were nevertheless described in texts and illustrations. The project aims to collect philological, iconographical and archaeological evidence to understand the religious beliefs, practices, interactions and knowledge not only of the ancient Egyptians’ daily life but also their perception of the afterlife. Till today scholars, as well as interested laymen, have had no resource to consult for specific examples of those beings, except for rather general encyclopaedias that include all kinds of divine beings or the Iconography of Deities and Demons (IDD) project that is ongoing. Neither provides, however, a searchable platform for both texts and images. The database created by the Demonology Project: 2K is designed to remedy this gap. The idea is to provide scholars and the public with a database that allows statistical analyses and innovative data visualisation, accessible and augmentable from all over the world to stimulate the dialogue and open communication not only within Egyptology but also with neighbouring disciplines. For the time-span of the three year project a pilot database was planned as a foundation for further data-collection and analysis. The data that were chosen date to the 2nd Millennium BCE and originate from objects of daily life (headrests and ivory wands), as well as from objects related to the afterlife, (coffins and ‘Book of the Dead’ manuscripts). This material, connected by its religious purposes, nevertheless provides a cross-section through ancient Egyptian religious practice. The project is funded by the Leverhulme Trust and includes Kasia Szpakowska (director) who supervises the work of the two participating PhD students in Egyptology. The project does not include funds for computer scientists or specialists in digital humanities. Therefore, the database is designed, developed and input by the members of the team only. The focus of my presentation will be the structure of the database that faces the challenge to include both textual and iconographical evidence. I will explain the organisation of the data, search patterns and the opportunities of their visualisation and possible research outcome. Furthermore, I will discuss the potentials the database already possesses and might generate in the future for scholars and the public likewise. Since the evidence belongs to numerous collections from all over the world, I would like to address the problems of intellectual property and copyright with the solution we pursue for releasing the database for registered usage onto the internet.

The hieratic script has never been studied systematically regarding its peculiarities in abbreviations, orthography, functions or historical development, nor in comparison with cursive and monumental hieroglyphs as well as Demotic signs. After Möller’s Hieratic Palaeography volumes I to III, being based on merely 32 sources, Egyptologists compiled several more or less complete palaeographies on single texts, groups of texts or time spans. However, the comparability of signs is often hindered or impossible due to the heterogeneity of writing surfaces, the quality of facsimiles and photos or the choice of examples and the degree of detail. Furthermore, the word or sign context is often lacking. Since April 2015 a long-term project for a possible maximum of 23 years is located at the universities of Mainz and Darmstadt, being financed by the Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities. The lecture presents the aims and methods of this project and discusses the state of affairs with regard to the development and structuring 1) of a digital palaeography of the cursive scripts, including all stages of hieratic, abnormal hieratic and cursive hieroglyphic scripts from the Early Dynastic period through to Roman times, and 2) of a database with extensive metadata that allows the study of various topics among which the emergence, development, regional use, context and economy of scripts as well as the identification of individual scribes’ hands. The project shall be understood as being decisively open for any cooperation among international experts.

“The Ancient Egyptian Demonology Project: Second Millennium BCE” was intended and funded as a three-year project (2013-2016) to explore the world of Ancient Egyptian demons in the 2nd millennium BC. It intends to create a classification and ontology of benevolent and malevolent demons. Whereas ancient Egyptians did not use a specific term denoting “demons”, liminal beings known from various other cultures such as δαίμονες, ghosts, angels, Mischwesen, genies, etc., were nevertheless described in texts and illustrations. The project aims to collect philological, iconographical and archaeological evidence to understand the religious beliefs, practices, interactions and knowledge not only of the ancient Egyptians’ daily life but also their perception of the afterlife. Till today scholars, as well as interested laymen, have had no resource to consult for specific examples of those beings, except for rather general encyclopaedias that include all kinds of divine beings or the Iconography of Deities and Demons (IDD) project that is ongoing. Neither provides, however, a searchable platform for both texts and images. The database created by the Demonology Project: 2K is designed to remedy this gap. The idea is to provide scholars and the public with a database that allows statistical analyses and innovative data visualisation, accessible and augmentable from all over the world to stimulate the dialogue and open communication not only within Egyptology but also with neighbouring disciplines. For the time-span of the three year project a pilot database was planned as a foundation for further data-collection and analysis. The data that were chosen date to the 2nd Millennium BCE and originate from objects of daily life (headrests and ivory wands), as well as from objects related to the afterlife, (coffins and ‘Book of the Dead’ manuscripts). This material, connected by its religious purposes, nevertheless provides a cross-section through ancient Egyptian religious practice. The project is funded by the Leverhulme Trust and includes Kasia Szpakowska (director) who supervises the work of the two participating PhD students in Egyptology. The project does not include funds for computer scientists or specialists in digital humanities. Therefore, the database is designed, developed and input by the members of the team only. The focus of my presentation will be the structure of the database that faces the challenge to include both textual and iconographical evidence. I will explain the organisation of the data, search patterns and the opportunities of their visualisation and possible research outcome. Furthermore, I will discuss the potentials the database already possesses and might generate in the future for scholars and the public likewise. Since the evidence belongs to numerous collections from all over the world, I would like to address the problems of intellectual property and copyright with the solution we pursue for releasing the database for registered usage onto the internet.

The hieratic script has never been studied systematically regarding its peculiarities in abbreviations, orthography, functions or historical development, nor in comparison with cursive and monumental hieroglyphs as well as Demotic signs. After Möller’s Hieratic Palaeography volumes I to III, being based on merely 32 sources, Egyptologists compiled several more or less complete palaeographies on single texts, groups of texts or time spans. However, the comparability of signs is often hindered or impossible due to the heterogeneity of writing surfaces, the quality of facsimiles and photos or the choice of examples and the degree of detail. Furthermore, the word or sign context is often lacking. Since April 2015 a long-term project for a possible maximum of 23 years is located at the universities of Mainz and Darmstadt, being financed by the Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities. The lecture presents the aims and methods of this project and discusses the state of affairs with regard to the development and structuring 1) of a digital palaeography of the cursive scripts, including all stages of hieratic, abnormal hieratic and cursive hieroglyphic scripts from the Early Dynastic period through to Roman times, and 2) of a database with extensive metadata that allows the study of various topics among which the emergence, development, regional use, context and economy of scripts as well as the identification of individual scribes’ hands. The project shall be understood as being decisively open for any cooperation among international experts.

No description available.