On Wednesday 18 January 2017 a workshop about Digital Epigraphy took place at Toniolo school.
The workshop was organized in the framework of our Erasmus+ project ”A Digital Journey in Europe” by Laboratorio di Cultura Digitale in collaboration with the research project TSS – “Tesserarum Siscia Sylloge”.
Students of the first class of the scuola media Toniolo and their literature teacher Lucia Pierotti took a very special lesson in epic taking part to the test of the software TSS – Tesserarum Sisciae Sylloge – Digital Autoptic Process.
The software TSS is devoted to the recognition of letters in ancient and modern epigraphs. The current version has been developed to analyze the roman labels dating from the 1° century A.D. discovered in Pannonia, Croatia, that are scratched with writing.
An additional version of the software, TSS Kids, has been developed for educational purpose, everyone is invited to suggest a modern or ancient epigraph to explore with the software.
The project TSS was publicly presented on January 25, 2017 in Rome during the EADH-Day 2017, for that occasion a special Challenge of “Epigrafia Enigmistica” has been organized. The class of Toniolo school participated officially to the challenge being part of the Yellow team “Epigraphy go for it!” Read more about the Challenge.
During the workshop students analyzed epigraphs of different kind and origin.
Some epigraphs were linked to the greek epic poems Iliad and Odyssey that are part of the study program of the class.
As preliminary task, the greek alphabet was introduced to the students. They really enjoyed discovering that mysterious coding system!
Then they used the software TSS Kids to solve some “enigmas” related to three epigraphs
Epigraph 1
Can you recognize the names written in the epigraph of Alessandro Magno in Priene? (sol. Alexandros and Athena)
Difficulty: the epigraph is written in greek alphabet.
The epigraph on the paper
The epigraph on the screen (interactive board)
The epigraph on PC: tracing the letters with the software TSS DAP
Epigraph 2
Recognize the characters and their names in a representation of Ajax bringing the Achilles’ dead body.
Difficulty: the greek word AKILEUS is mirror written!
Epigraph 3
Detect the word “Cyclops” in the epigraph of Sperlonga Cave (Italy).
Difficulty: the epigraph is written in roman latin writing system but some letters are missing!
Introducing the TSS Challenge!
Students were faced with the first task of the TSS Challenge: detecting the letters written in the lead tag 12563 through the TSS DAP and translating its content…
The lead tag 12563
Experiencing the light change feature to better detect some letters…
Getting help with the glyps table
Comparing the results with the transcription in the catalogue
