Nearly a hundred ASA graffiti from the sites along the Darb al-Bakrah have been digitised in CSAI. We are grateful to Prof. Laïla Nehmé (CNRS-UMR8167), in charge of the publication of the epigraphic material of the Darb al-Bakrah survey, for providing the original photographs and permitting their reuse within DASI.
The digitisation work formed part of a collaboration of CNR-ISPC with the Liceo delle Scienze Applicate “E. Fermi” (Desio, Italy), to train high-school students on Digital Humanities and the study of epigraphy (see Credits). The activities were conducted within the frame of the PCTO (Percorsi per le Competenze Trasversali e per l'Orientamento) of the Italian Ministry of Education.
Bibliographic reference:
Nehmé L. (ed.) 2021. The Darb al-Bakrah: A Caravan Route in North-West Arabia discovered by Ali I. al-Ghabban. Catalogue of the Inscriptions. Riyadh: Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage. [Open-access version: https://hal.science/hal-02096586]
Recent work on the DASI platform has been carried out within the framework of the H2IOSC Project for the E-RIHS research infrastructure, with a focus on enriching the data model for the description of written sources from ancient Arabia and improving the archive as a FAIR research and publication tool.
Within the database, existing attributes have been refined and new ones introduced to better describe the chronological and physical characteristics of written texts and to accommodate a wider range of sources, such as graffiti, wooden sticks, instrumenta inscripta, and coins. Updated and newly added records are progressively made available through the website.
The website includes a renovated homepage providing access to restructured static content, along with individual epigraph, object, and site records integrating richer descriptive information such as persistent identifiers (DOIs), editorial responsibilities, revision history, and citation suggestion.
A key aspect of the recent work concerns data interoperability. In addition to the possibility of linking DASI records to external resources, thus enhancing networking within the LOD ecosystem, a new API endpoint has been developed to enable flexible, machine-actionable access to and export of data, while the OAI-PMH repository continues to expose resources based on widely adopted standards such as TEI-EpiDoc, Dublin Core, and the Europeana Data Model.
Data are released under a CC BY 4.0 license, providing a clear framework for reuse, while images remain property of third parties.
CSAI’s bibliography up to 2021, comprising about 1,800 records, has been fully FAIRified and is available for reuse via Zotero.
Further information on DASI’s renovation process can be found in this publication.