Presentation of the project at the conference
„Zukunft des digitalen Erbes?“
Nachhaltige Lösungen für Gedächtnis- und Wissenschaftseinrichtungen
Within this conference, Dr. Joachim Kemper (Frankfurt a.M.) and Dr. Markus Späth (Gießen) will present “Digitized wax: 3D capture of medieval seals – project presentation and persepctives within the framework of the EU-funded project “co:op””
Abstract:
Despite the significant progress of digitizing archival material from the Middle Ages, for one part of this historic tradition there has not yet been found an adequate solution: the seals. These signs of privilege were imprinted with a stamp onto soft carrier substance (especially wax) and subsequently attached to charters. Already in the archive organization of the Middle Ages, seals turned out to be foreign object with regard to the documentation of charters – and they remained to be considered foreign objects up to today’s digitization activities of archival sources.
The presentation, on the one hand, introduces the results of the pilot project carried out by the City Archives of Speyer (DE) and the Justus Liebig University of Gießen (DE) on digitizing wax seals, employing various methods to measure surface area (3D scan) and capture the wax objects (μCT). On the other hand, this presentation discusses perspectives on how to integrate the gained knowledge resp. digital objects into existing data platforms which usually focus on the archiving and presentation of two dimensional documents as well as explore future usability within the scope of the EU-funded project “co:op – community as opportunity”. This contribution aims at gathering ideas on how to sustainably pass on the digital archiving of seals as central artefacts of medieval privilege and image culture.