Inscriptions of the Northern Black Sea

Inscriptiones antiquae Orae Septentrionalis Ponti Euxini graecae et latinae (IOSPE)

• forthcoming: description from 2010 APA paper abstract:

The paper presents current work on the preparation of a digital edition of IOSPE3, a new corpus of all known ancient Greek and Latin inscriptions originating from the northern coast of the Black Sea (see a recent workshop at http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/964/). This new corpus is conceived as an update and re-conceptualization of the 1885–1901 Russian publication Inscriptiones antiquae Orae Septentrionalis Ponti Euxini graecae et latinae (IOSPE). It will incorporate collections of local inscriptions published in Russian in the 1960s, first editions of inscriptions found since, and the results of editors’ on-site study of all inscriptions known from the area. Among the innovations proposed for the new corpus are the inclusion of texts inscribed on metal, ceramic, and bone fabrics; the use of English in place of Latin and Russian in the commentaries and scholarly documentation; and the implementation of a digital framework, alongside a standard print edition, for the development, presentation, publication, and exploitation of the corpus.

The new IOSPE will be electronically published using EpiDoc, an XML standard specifically designed for the publication of inscriptions.