Inscriptionsdiagrams

Inscriptionsdiagrams are diagrammatic representations designed to encode and visualize inscriptions, such as stone engravings, inscriptions on metal, or manuscript marginalia. A diagram records the physical layout of the text, its lineation, orientation, and material context, as well as metadata about provenance and dating.

Purpose and scope: They support analysis of writing systems, scribal practices, and textual transmission by enabling side-by-side comparison and reconstruction from fragments.

Structure: An typical inscriptionsdiagram includes a grid or planar layout indicating coordinates for each sign, a sign inventory with glyph identifiers, a reading order, annotations for damaged areas, material and findspot, dating, linguistic notes, and links to image resources.

Creation and standards: The process combines transcription, graphical encoding of signs, and data modeling. They may be stored in machine-readable formats such as TEI with an epigraphic extension, or in dedicated ontologies with SignList-like vocabularies. Reference to standard inscription sign catalogs helps interoperability.

Applications: used in archaeology, philology, and digital humanities to document, compare, and analyze inscriptions. They facilitate typological studies, provenance research, and the development of OCR for inscriptions.

See also: Epigraphy, TEI, EpiDoc, SignList.