SigiDoc 1.1

SigiDoc is an XML-based and TEI-compliant standard, largely based on the experience of EpiDoc, for the encoding of Byzantine seals. SigiDoc represents the first attempt to extend the digital approach – already applied to inscriptions, coins and papyri – to Byzantine seals: it allows the scholarly edition of the seals (as objects, texts, and images) and the valorisation of the data coming from them. The transformation of XML documents into a webpage, various indexing possibilities, a search interface as well as multi-lingual features are delivered to SigiDoc by EFES (EpiDoc Front-End Services).

The current version of the SigiDoc Guidelines is the 1.1: it represents the first development of these Guidelines since their first release, in September 2021. Other developments are planned during the year 2023. They are being implemented in the framework of a French-German project – DigiByzSeal (jointy funded by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) – involving the Monde byzantin team of the CNRS (Paris), the Department of Byzantine Studies and Modern Greek Philology of the University of Cologne and the Cologne Center for eHumanities of the University of Cologne: the enhancement of the SigiDoc recommendations is a key objective of DigiByzSeal.