The New Homer Multitext Manuscript Browser

A New Manuscript Browser

We recently noted that the old Manuscript Browser application, which lives at http://chs75.harvard.edu was going away. That application, written in 2007, had fallen behind the times.

There is a new Manuscript Browser online at http://folio.furman.edu/rumba.
This application offers several paths of entry to our collection of manuscript images:

• A user can request a particular folio (by number and side, “recto” or “verso”), or a particular manuscript to see all available images of that manuscript.
• A user can request a particular passage of the Iliad (by Book and Line), and see every manuscript folio on which that line appears, and thence to go a particular folio and its images.
• A user can request a particular passage of the Iliad (by Book and Line) and a particular manuscript, to go to the page where that line appears.

This new application represents another experiment in our project of rapid development of end-user applications and tools based on an RDF graph of canonical citations. People interested in this kind of thing can do “view source” on any page to see the underlying data, which is simply XML output of SparQL queries.

Gratia Amicorum

Our embrace of RDF for structuring and organizing the HMT’s data was greatly accelerated thanks to the Linked Ancient World Data Initiative [LAWDI], and their NEH-funded workshop held at ISAW in 2012; we are extremely grateful to the NEH and to Sebastian Heath, Tom Elliott, Hugh Cayless, Sean Gillies, and the other organizers, faculty, and participants in that event. It led directly to one of the most exciting and productive years in the life of the Homer Multitext.