Index 2.0 roundtable

Description

The roundtable introduces the Index 2.0 project which aims to revive the invaluable resource of the Index Interpolationum in digital form and unlock a new wave of text-based computational research in Roman law. In order to create a workflow for future research assistants with varying levels of Latin proficiency and familiarity with Roman law and to explore Index 2.0’s potential for future research, we are holding a one-day practical workshop at Royal Holloway (Egham, England) in April and another one (subject to funding) at Napier University (Edinburgh, Scotland) in June, where participants receive training, test and comment on the data entry process. This roundtable, chaired by Benet Salway, offers short ice-breaker presentations that will cover different aspects of an ambitious project in its early stages.

Joanna Kulawiak-Cyrankowska will address the philological aspects, and explain our strategies to convey the importance of following the principle of limited trust when reading the Digest, and use selected case studies to demonstrate how potential interpolations can be identified.

Marton Ribary will discuss the project’s digital humanities aspects. He will explain the data entry process which includes semantic decoding of the information available in the Index, and its subsequent digital encoding in an interactive technical infrastructure created in Google Form with data validation and Google Apps Script.

Giuseppe Di Donato will illustrate the benefit and value of this project to Roman law research, taking into account both the alternating fortune experienced by the original Index since it was elaborated and the current state of research.

We invite the audience to an open discussion about the digital revival of interpolation research. The aim of Index 2.0 is to make the Digest text interactive and allow users to toggle between different readings according to periods, schools and individual researchers. Users would be able to record their own insights about textual authenticity on a platform we envisage to become an online meeting point of text-based Roman legal scholarship.

Period	23 Aug 2023
Event title	76e session de la Société Internationale Fernand De Visscher pour l’Histoire des Droits de l’Antiquité: Materiality and immateriality of ancient law
Event type	Conference
Location	Helsinki, FinlandShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International