Kathryn Piquette (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland)

This paper aims to challenge the notion that ‘digital archaeology is synonymous with quantitative methods and their empiricist overtones’. Two projects centring on written evidence – one completed and another in the planning stages – will be presented in order to demonstrate the ways in which computer technologies are facilitating the explicit application of archaeological theory and qualitative method to diverse datasets. The first deals with the use of the qualitative analytical tool ATLAS.ti for the study of objects bearing the earliest ‘writing’ from the Nile Valley. This brief project report will highlight ways in which computers can engender holistic practice-centred studies of datasets which traditionally have received decontextualised treatment. The theoretical and practical implications of combining information from archaeological and philological discourses will be considered in the context of project planning for the digitisation of Greek and demotic papyri held in the Long Room, Trinity College Dublin. With the reductions in time and costs of data capture, reproduction, and dissemination, 2D digitisation of inscribed surfaces is becoming standard practice for collections worldwide. The aim of this mode of representation (in tandem with descriptive and other information) has been to represent and disseminate meaning content, mainly to specialist audiences. The study and re-presentation of complex social and material networks in which inscribed papyri or any other document types were embedded remains an undeveloped area. Recent advances in virtual systems and multimedia may be capable of supporting more complex visualisations of documents in relation to the practices and performances in which these were made, used and attributed meaning. However, some types of computer visualisation can be misleading with regard to the certainty of results and interpretations, or fossilise knowledge that is, in fact, continually evolving and changing. How then do we develop an interface between a perceptual present and a virtual past that makes the process of knowledge construction both transparent and permits its modification as new insights emerge?