Gabriel Bodard

@palaeofuturist

He/him. Reader in Digital Classics @dh-researchhub.bsky.social & @ics.bsky.social University of London. #EpiDoc #DigiClass #Epigraphy #Papyrology #AncientMagic #LinkedOpenData #Prosopography #3Dimaging #CulturalHeritage. Writes 100% in personal capacity.

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Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· 6d

Happy 1604th birthday to Ch'a-[..], ajaw or king of Palenque, who would go on to reign 52 years, but whose name in Maya hieroglyphs has not been fully deciphered, born #onthisday in 422 CE (8.19.6.8.8 long count). (Scholars dub him "Casper" pending successful transcription of his name.)

Drawing of a Maya compound hieroglyph, the right-hand half of which superficially resembles a goofy cartoon ghost.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· May 12

#EpigraphyTuesday This recently repatriated Roman inscription, that was until now in a private garden in New Orleans since WW2, as reported widely in the press: i.guim.co.uk/img/media/3e... was previously only illustrated with a drawing in EDR: www.edr-edr.it/edr_programm... Fuller records to come!

Photograph of the inscribed face of the c. 25 x 27 cm inscription, the stone otherwise embedded in the ground (presumably in the garden in New Orleans prior to repatriation to Italy). Text as transcribed in EDR is very clear.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Apr 23

After which we looked at some specific objects (scanned vase; reconstructed temple; 3D printed earring) and discussed what we would want to document from each. Amanuensis captured discussion on the whiteboard: #3DSummerSchool

Whiteboard with colour coded notes on metadata and paradata on (1) Object (including catalogue metadata, scale, place and date info, bibliography, provenance and rights); (2) Process (light, hardware, media, software, settings, location, personnel); (3) Decisions (to be continued on next slide)

Notes on "Decisions" that might be recorded in metadata/paradata, including: intention, licensing, recording of process, dimensions used, textures, AI use, standardisation, addition features, supports, Gcode settings, filament choice.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Feb 24

#EpigraphyTuesday The inscription on the Wold Cottage Obelisk, commemorating the landing of a meteorite in 1795. i.guim.co.uk/img/media/85... (Imagining how I'd encode the palaeography of this piece in #EpiDoc…)

Here
On this Spot, December 13th 1795,
fell from the Atmosphere
AN EXTRAORDINARY STONE
In breadth 28 inches
In length 36 inches

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Feb 11

R.I.P. Jake, the best boy.

Greying-black-haired dog with slightly grumpy expression and semi-perked ears sitting on a sofa, staring just above the camera, doubtless in expectation of some kind of treat in return for being so photogenic.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Jan 20

Happy birthday to Jean-Jacques Barthélemy, 310 years old today, archaeologist, antiquarian and novelist who deciphered the Palmyrene and Phoenician scripts. Born #onthisday in 1716.

Table showing the 22 characters of the Palmyrene alphabet from Barthélemy's 1754 publication. Laid out in four columns: Palmyrene letter forms; Hebrew equivalent; letter name; phonetic value (using Greek characters).

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Jan 13

Further #ClassicalReception: a puzzle for the #EpigraphyTuesday crowd The garbled text in this image has a mix of Latin & Greek characters plus abbreviations that are clearly inspired by Latin epigraphy. Can you identify a Latin text that was the model for this weird mashup, or is it just gAI mush?

A cgi graphic of a "Greek inscription" from a simple match-3 videogame. The nonsensical text is a mixture of Greek and Latin characters, including some ligatures and abbreviations, suggesting it has been drawn by someone (or a gAI agent) who has at least looked at an ancient inscription once.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Jan 7

Found art: today in #ClassicalReception in video games…

A screenshot from a "match 3"-style videogame side quest. Protagonist, an "archaeologist" named Rachel, speaks: "Aha! I"m very familiar with this Greek dialect. It says that the main secret of the Sanctuary of the Pythia is hidden behind the door." She and a cowboy-hatted "historian" stand before a pillared and pedimented building with arcane-looking but gibberish glyphs inscribed over a front panel.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Jan 6

More fun, the first half of l. 21 (highlighted in image), Θ..ΚΕΕ in R+WP's 1952 diplomatic, and interpreted θ´ καὶ ε´ (the numerals 9 and 5), but translated as "65? years" on the grounds that the symbols given make no sense. Dobias-Lalou 2021 translates "75 ans", reading ο̣´ κὲ ε´. #epigraphytuesday

Detail of lines discussed in this bleet, from black and white photograph by Wad-Perkins 1948. First 5–6 characters are highlighted with enhanced greyscale levels, the rest of image brilliance slightly turned down for contrast.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Jan 6

Revisiting IRT (Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania 1952/2009/2021) for #EpigraphyTuesday: IRT 690: Undated Greek funerary verse for Delarkes (found in Al-Khums/Homs, Libya, on road from Oea to Lepcis Magna) irt2021.inslib.kcl.ac.uk/en/inscripti...

View of inscription IRT 690, colour photograph by Tantillo 2006; architectural base is a sandy brown limestone with small letters and 33 lines of text. Photograph is not ideal for reading.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Dec 16

#EpigraphyTuesday Inspired by the reopened National Museum of Libya in Tripoli, let's look at IRT 231, a Roman-era dedication to Liber Pater: irt2021.inslib.kcl.ac.uk/en/inscripti...

1950s(?) back and white photograph of IRT 231, identified as Ward-Perkins Archive, BSR (Sopr. DTV 676 Leica). The text is barely legible, faded, uppercase Latin script. A scale at the top of the photograph identifies it as a little over 40cm wide.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Oct 14

#EpigraphyTuesday If you look a bit more closely at that text, there's an interesting quirk. The final letter on line one, the E that makes the name dative, is written on the right moulding. Classic poor execution by the letter-cutter. But.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Oct 14

#EpigraphyTuesday One of my favourite pieces to look at in IRT (Reynolds & Ward-Perkins 1952; 2009; 2021): this dedicatory bust of the goddess Concordia with a statue base inscription reading CONCORDIAE AFRICANVS: "Africanus [dedicated this] to Concordia." irt2021.inslib.kcl.ac.uk/en/inscripti...

A white marble Roman bust, photographed at a very slightly oblique angle, of a female figure (the goddess Concord or Concordia) upon a statue base reading CONCORDIAE AFRICANVS.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Oct 7

#EpigraphyTuesday CIL VI 32493 = EDR 121963: a fragment of a Roman fasti or calendar, which among other things records the date of death of Drusus the Younger, son of Tiberius, as Sept 14th [23 CE].

Fragment of marble inscribed with Latin text. Full transcription (and other metadata) can be found at http://www.edr-edr.it/edr_programmi/res_complex_comune.php?visua=si&id_nr=EDR121963

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Oct 2

Furious

Screenshot from the Wordiply online game. Guess: "PROTOGORGONEION" (15). Response: "not in word list".

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Sep 23

#EpigraphyTuesday The text is also super-readable from the photograph (poor quality scan below), a lovely example of archaic scripts (upright zeta, square eta, H-heta) and other semi-phonetic epigraphic (mis)spellings, and a great introduction to epigraphic verse for keen students.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Sep 16

#EpigraphyTuesday Bertrand, Colosse de Memnon 28 (epigraphy.packhum.org/text/227949): Julia Balbilla, in Greek verse cut as a secondary inscription on the (then) ancient statue, tells of Hadrian meeting the statue of Memnon in 130 CE. (Photo by MusikAnimal, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

A photograph of the two Colossi of Memnon (c. 18-metre high quartzite stone statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, part of the Mortuary temple opposite ancient Thebes, modern Luxor). The photograph was taken on a sunny day in 2015, with a blue sky above with hints of faint whispy clouds, and rocky hills in the background. Tiny tourists in the foreground for scale.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Aug 26

#EpigraphyTuesday 2/3 cent altar from Atrans dedicated to the majestic goddess Hecate in fulfilment of a vow by the Aurelius brothers Asclepiodotus and Lucius. CIL Ⅲ.5119. Hecate / Augustae / Aurelii As/clepiodo/tus et Luci/us pro sal(ute) / sua et suor(um) / v(otum) s(olverunt) l(ibentes) m(erito)

Photograph of a marble base/altar, inscribed in majuscule Latin characters on the face, as transcribed in the post.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Aug 19

For a more reliably bloodthirsty prayer to Lady Nemesis for vengeance see (HD025425=RIB 323): NON / REDIMAT NI / VITA SANGVINEI / SVO ("redeemed only with their life and blood"). Certainly sounds more like bloody vengeance than a "prayer for justice" to me! #epigraphytuesday

Drawing (on left) and photograph (on right) of the lead curse tablet described in this post. On drawing the script is cursive Latin, very hard to read to untrained eye; on photograph, faint scratches on the lead surface are barely recognisable as writing, much less legible.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Aug 19

#EpigraphyTuesday DEAE NEM REGINAE / CAEC ANTONINVS EX V P Caec(ilius) Antinoninus dedicated this to the goddess Nem(esis) Regina in fulfilment of his vow. (c.30cm high, 2nd/3rd cent., from Sarmizegetusa) EDH: HD047218 / PHI: PH299004

Monochrome photograph of a votive statuette of an ancient Roman female figure with head broken off, fragmentary iconography includes a wheel. Inscription is on the base of the statuette.

Close up of the inscribed statuette base in the same photograph. Latin text as transcribed in the post.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· May 27

#EpigraphyTuesday Marking up IRT 005 with the students of the #EpiDoc workshop in Maynooth:

TEI EpiDoc XML encoding of a 6-line Latin inscription, including line-beginnings, abbreviations, lacunae, illegible characters, wrapped lines. Genio frugi/fero Aug(usti) Iunius Cres/cens […]

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· May 27

#EpigraphyTuesday The Donaghmore Ogham Stone, 3D printed replica in the early Irish department at Maynooth University. (#EpiDoc workshop)

3D print of a standing Ogham Stone, slightly smaller than life-size, in light grey filament, standing on a seminar room desk.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· May 26

Great quote about online publication, from Charlotte Roueché's keynote lecture (Trinity College Dublin, Digital Epigraphy #EpiDoc workshop)

Very easy on, someone asked me, "Aren't you worried that someone will _use_ your data?"

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Apr 10

#3dSummerSchool Whiteboard notes on ethics of 3D imaging and modelling on cultural heritage, directly annotated from student breakout groups.

Whiteboard covered in notes in my poor handwriting, with headings "indigenous/community knowledge", "IP & access", "accessibility" and "environmental impact". Apologies for legibility.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Apr 10

#3dSummerSchool cont'd A second sheet of brainstorm of metadata/paradata you might record on a 3d visualisation/CAD.

Photo of a whiteboard with notes on 3D paradata (to be taken in combination with less legible notes in previous bleet).

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Apr 10

#3dSummerSchool Yesterday's brainstorm of types of metadata and paradata you might want to record for a 3D scanned object...

Whiteboard with notes in terrible handwriting (no chance at HTR/OCR on this). Headings for "object", "technology", "software" and "model".

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Feb 5

Is this good enough?

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Nov 26

This #EpigraphyTuesday I have been teaching curse tablets in Roman Epigraphy MA class, starting with this Romano-British curse to Lady Nemesis for vengeance for a stolen cloak and boots (romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions...). My catchphrase when looking at ancient curses? "Be careful!"

Drawing of RIB 323, which is in rough, difficult, cursive Latin. You can't read it from the picture anyway… go to https://romaninscriptionsofbritain.org/inscriptions/323 for a transcription and translation.

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Nov 12

I'm so dead.

David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as Mulder and Scully from The X-Files (photo circa 1995)

Gabriel Bodard@palaeofuturist· Jul 30

EpiDoc Training, Foggia, Sep 30 – Oct 4. (Tuition in Italian.) Details in attached poster. Register at docs.google.com/forms/d/1oD-...