Online Corpus of Ancient Sarcophagi

 [First posted in AWOL 2 June 2012, updated 14 January 2015]

Corpus of Ancient Sarcophagi

Prof. Dr. Ortwin Dally, Prof. Dr. Reinhard Förtsch, Prof. Dr. Henner v. Hesberg

In cooperation with the German Archaeological Institute, the CoDArchLab takes part in the re-conception of the Corpus of Ancient Sarcophagi and from an IT point of view, assumes responsibility for backing up an online-presence of the material, which is to be as coherent as possible. The Corpus was determined for collection and publication of sarcophagi of the Roman Empire by the German Archaeological Institute in the year 1870. An adequate, software based structuring is to be developed in a pilot phase financed by the University of Cologne and arbitrarily implemented on chosen categories. It is also possible to use the great, partly digitalized photo holdings on ancient sarcophagus plastic of the CoDArchLab. One leading aspect is to make the formalization and recyclability of the elicitation of the material a central editorial principle. Up to now the editing of the volumes was handled so that each author compiled the documentation in literature and photographs himself. Therefore the institute lacks an overall object collection or file. This poses a serious conceptual deficit, not only editorially but also for and in times of digitalized information, since the collected information outside of the format of the published volumes went lost. Thus all material conditioning of new volumes is to be conducted in ARACHNE by a formalized process, so that personal changes during processing are more bearable. That way it is possible to make the already processed information available to science in the database even if the project was closed. A second leading aspect is the substantial conception of web processing, in which the functional and regional scenic contexts, regarding contents, are to be considered more strongly than by the previously applied principle, which has barely been changed since the 19th century and treats one mythological figure or category after the other. The footing for this is a “fixed” website of the DAI for the corpus of sarcophagi. Among other things, it contains “fixed” appropriate pages with persistent URL for individual volumes:

• Initially, for previously published volumes, the automatically allocated new finds, which were extracted from ARACHNE and unveiled only after the volume was published
• A gradually performed, retrospective digitalization of the issued material for previously published volumes
• For newly published volumes with automatically allocated total documentation of the material, extracted from ARACHNE

“Fixed” appropriate pages with persistent URL for navigation within the sarcophagi only:

• By functional contexts, regions, chronological criteria, themes or else combinations of these four criteria

The material of the sarcophagus corpus seems to be prominently distinguished by several criteria: Tradition, international significance, generic homogeneity of the material, a high degree of chronological and contextual determinability of the individual objects and the capability to contextualize multi-figured scenes. Therefore it is a particularly suitable domain to represent the technical discourse structure by using metadata models from the information technology.

 ASR 1, 2: B. Andreae, Sarkophage mit Darstellungen aus dem Menschenleben. Die römischen Jagdsarkophage, ASR 1, 2 (Berlin 1980)

ASR 1, 4: R. Amedick, Sarkophage mit Darstellungen aus dem Menschenleben. Vita Privata, ASR 1, 4 (Berlin 1991),

ASR 2: C. Robert, Die antiken Sarkophag-Reliefs. Mythologische Cyklen, ASR 2 (Berlin 1890)

ASR 2SupplementeASR 2 inkl. Supplemente

ASR 3, 1: C. Robert, Die antiken Sarkophagreliefs. Einzelmythen. Actaeon bis Hercules, ASR 3, 1 (Berlin 1897)

ASR 3, 1SupplementeASR 3, 1 inkl. Supplemente

ASR 3, 2: C. Robert, Die antiken Sarkophagreliefs. Einzelmythen. Hippolytos bis Meleagros, ASR 3, 2 (Berlin 1904)

ASR 3, 3: C. Robert, Die antiken Sarkophagreliefs. Einzelmythen. Niobiden bis Triptolemos. Ungedeutet, ASR 3, 3 (Berlin 1919)

ASR 4, 1: F. Matz, Die dionysischen Sarkophage, ASR 4, 1 (Berlin 1968)

ASR 4, 2: F. Matz, Die dionysischen Sarkophage, ASR 4, 2 (Berlin 1968)

ASR 4, 3: F. Matz, Die dionysischen Sarkophage, ASR 4, 3 (Berlin 1969)

ASR 4, 4: F. Matz, Die dionysischen Sarkophage, ASR 4, 4 (Berlin 1974)

ASR 5, 1: A. Rumpf, Die Meerwesen auf den antiken Sarkophagreliefs, ASR 5, 1 (Berlin 1939)

ASR 5, 2,1: P. Kranz, Die stadtrömischen Eroten-Sarkophage. Dionysische Themen, ASR 5, 2,1 (Berlin 1999)

ASR 5, 2,2: D. Bielefeld, Die stadtrömischen Eroten-Sarkophage. Weinlese- und Ernteszenen, ASR 5, 2,2 (Berlin 1997)

ASR 5, 2,3: K. Schauenburg, Die stadtrömischen Eroten-Sarkophage. Zirkusrennen und verwandte Darstellungen, ASR 5, 2,3 (Berlin 1995)

ASR 5, 3: M. Wegner, Die Musensarkophage, ASR 5, 3 (Berlin 1966)

ASR 5, 4: P. Kranz, Jahreszeiten-Sarkophage, ASR 5, 4 (Berlin 1984),

ASR 6, 1: J. Stroszeck, Löwen-Sarkophage. Die Sarkophage mit Löwenköpfen, schreitenden Löwen und Löwen-Kampfgruppen, ASR 6, 1 (Berlin 1998)

ASR 6, 2,1: H. Herdejürgen, Die dekorativen römischen Sarkophage. Stadtrömische und italische Girlandensarkophage. Die Sarkophage des 1. und 2. Jahrhunderts, ASR 6, 2,1 (Berlin 1996)

ASR 8, 2: J. Kollwitz - H. Dittmers-Herdejürgen, Die Sarkophage der westlichen Gebiete des Imperium Romanum. Die ravennatischen Sarkophage, ASR 8, 2 (Berlin 1979)

ASR 9, 1,1: S. Rogge, Die Sarkophage Griechenlands und der Donauprovinzen. Die attischen Sarkophage. Achill und Hippolytos, ASR 9, 1,1 (Berlin 1995),

ASR 12, 1: D. Grassinger, Die mythologischen Sarkophage. Achill bis Amazonen, ASR 12, 1 (Berlin 1999),

ASR 12, 2: H. Sichtermann, Die mythologischen Sarkophage. Apollon bis Grazien, ASR 12, 2 (Berlin 1992)

ASR 12, 6: G. Koch, Die mythologischen Sarkophage. Meleager, ASR 12, 6 (Berlin 1975)