Egyptology and digital humanities – does it fit together or do we open Pandora’s box?
Introduction by OpenMethods Editor (Delphine Montoliu): This post presents stereotypes on research methods in egyptology, and the current and new projects and tools in this research field.
I think Egyptologists themselves don’t know how many digital resources they are already working with every day. The times when they were spending hours skimming through every single book in the library are long gone. Today, they can use the “Online Egyptological Bibliography”, for instance. When they collect data (no matter if texts or images) they can use an Excel-file or other software to make the data easily comparable. On excavations they use laser scanners to measure, for instance, a tomb with precise accuracy, and with high-resolution cameras they can show reliefs and images in every single detail. Photoshop or other raster graphics editors help reveal long-lost subtleties. This gives us the possibility to work fast and accurate. The field of digital humanities is just one more little step away.
Original publication date: 26/09/2014.