Papyrus collection presents 6000 documents from ancient Egypt in an online database
Press release from 05/02/2012
As part of a digitisation project, the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection of the National Museums in Berlin will make 6,000 texts available in an online database by autumn 2013. The project is being funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). It offers ancient history scholars as well as the general public interested in ancient Egypt access to high-quality object images and accompanying information as well as further research options. Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, said: "This database is a prime example of the great opportunities offered by the digitisation of cultural assets. Fragile objects in particular can be viewed by a large number of interested parties, which would often be virtually impossible in a museum.
The project underlines the SPK's efforts to digitise large parts of its holdings and make them accessible to the public free of charge and independent of time and place. In the coming months, the data collected by the papyrus collection will be incorporated into the "SPK Digital" portal and via this into the German Digital Library (DDB). A beta version of the DDB with a database of around 6 million objects will go live in the course of this year.
The "Berlin Papyrus Database (BerlPap)" currently already presents 650 objects, many of which are being displayed for the first time ever. The project manager at the papyrus collection, Fabian Reiter, hopes that the financial support will be extended. This would allow further exhibits to be added to the database and objects that have not yet been scientifically or conservationally processed and are still stored in original discovery boxes from the excavation campaigns to be included.
The papyrus collection of the National Museums in Berlin includes several tens of thousands of inscribed papyri, 7000 ostraca (inscribed shards of clay) and over 1000 parchments. This makes it the most important papyrus collection in Germany and one of the five largest collections of its kind in the world.
Further information on the database can be found at: berlpap.smb.museum/