Digitising Libyan heritage: inscriptions and toponomy

Abstract

The new digital technologies have become an effective tool for researchers in different fields. Historians and archaeologists who are studying Greek and Roman Libya have benefited from technical developments in presenting different kinds of data, particularly relating to the epigraphy and toponymy of Libya. They have recently published several resources, and are working on more. This study presents the story of how scholars have collected a variety of Libyan heritage materials and published them online; the account makes it clear that these digital projects are the result of extensive and ongoing collaboration between researchers from different countries, including Libya. They have worked together, and are still working to produce valuable online corpora of inscriptions alongside the Heritage Gazetteer of Libya which records names used at different times, and in a variety of languages, of heritage sites. We also discuss plans for further improving the accessibility of these materials, and encouraging their wider use.