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Seshat: A Digital Measurement Tool for Analysing Medieval Manuscripts

What is Seshat?

According to an apocryphal story, Lord Kelvin or as now believed, Albert A. Michelson, declared in 1900:

“There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.”

Is the fate of palaeography similar? In 1979 the distinguished palaeographer Bernhard Bischoff inadvertently touched on this question when he wrote in the introduction of his handbook that palaeography was being transformed in his time “from an art of seeing and sympathetic understanding” to “an art of measurement” (Paläographie des römischen Altertums und des abendländischen Mittelalters [Berlin, 1979], p. 17). The statement triggered heated reactions and defences of palaeography as an art of cultivated seeing. Our new digital tool Seshat is not intended to promote the idea that palaeography should be a purely quantitative discipline. But it does enable users to measure key features of scripts from high-quality images, which is both useful and desirable in the digital age.

Named after the Ancient Egyptian goddess of scribes, Seshat is a measurement tool with annotation features that make it possible to conduct a thorough palaeographical analysis of a digital object. It allows users to highlight textual regions, underline specific words or lines, insert comments, trace letterforms using adjustable pen angles (0°, 25°, 30°, 50°, and 80°), and excerpt data in different formats to be used as a dataset later. The tracing functionality supports the analysis of script ductus and scribal hand variation.

Taking inspiration from the first version of a software tool for the critical examination of historical handwriting called Graphoskop developed by Maria Gurrado and Giancarlo Lestingi (https://www.irht.cnrs.fr/fr/ressources/sites-web-outils-corpus/graphoskop), we have included a suite of measurement tools that calculate horizontal and vertical distances for particular script and page features: ascender and descender heights, interlinear spacing, margins, overall line heights, and inter-column spaces. A stroke angle measurement feature allows for precise documentation of letterform direction and inclination. Statistical tools automatically calculate averages, standard deviations, and mode values across measurements for both single pages and entire manuscripts.

Seshat is fully IIIF-compatible, enabling users to load manuscript images from major repositories such as the British Library, the Vatican Library, or other IIIF-compliant archives. The option to upload JPEG formatted images is also available. Image cropping functionality is built in, letting users isolate manuscript regions and export these selections in PNG or SVG formats, with or without annotations.

What were our goals when starting to develop this app?

When we started, our main goals were:·To provide a digital tool for precise annotation and measurement of palaeographic features (e.g. ductus, margins, letterforms).

To simulate traditional palaeographic tracing methods (such as ductus analysis) in a digital environment by including adjustable pen angle tracing.

To allow users to collect measurable data (distances, angles) and automatically generate statistical outputs to support comparative manuscript studies.

To enable scholars to manipulate and export parts of manuscript images for publication or focused analysis.

To ensure integration with IIIF resources for direct access to high-quality manuscript images without requiring local uploads.

Currently, Seshat includes all the functionalities listed above, and is already being applied successfully in internal research for ductus evaluation, scribal variation analysis, and manuscript layout studies.

Seshat in the Future

Seshat is not yet finished. Based on development and user feedback, we plan the following additional features:

Tracing

Allow users to form strokes with a simulated quill, where the quill size is determined by selecting two points on the canvas in pixels. This size will be adjustable.

Support saving both individual and clustered strokes together with the underlying cropped manuscript image.

Commenting

Allow customization of comment text, including font family, font size, and colour, displayed on a transparent layer (removing the current speech bubble design).

Enable adjustment of text appearance (font, size, colour) for clearer comment placement without obscuring manuscript details.

Measurement

Integrate tracing and measurement tools to allow for linked analysis (e.g. measuring traced strokes).

Provide pixel-based measurements that can be converted to standard units.

Enable curve measurement and potentially measure nib (quill) width directly from the stroke trace data.

Alphabet selection

Develop an alphabet selection tool to extract individual letter shapes defined by the user.

Moving forwards, we will be improving Seshat based on user feedback and will be doing our best to deliver a very user-friendly interface by spring 2026!

— Project eManuSkript Team

 

eManuSkript: New project to create digital teaching tools in palaeography funded at the University of Göttingen

Group of people sitting around a round table in the middle of a room filled with bookcases.
Göttingen students working with manuscripts at the Vercelli Spring School.

A project by Dr. Anna Dorofeeva at the Institute for Digital Humanities in Göttingen has recently been awarded €400,000 in the Freiraum 2023 competition by the Stiftung Innovation in der Hochschullehre. Over the next two years, a team of historians and programmers, working in close collaboration with BA and MA students, will develop a range of teaching and learning tools for manuscript studies, including palaeography.

There exist very few digital tools suitable for teaching the full range of skills necessary for working with medieval codices. Access to culturally important manuscript sources is restricted to those with specialized subject knowledge, which creates significant challenges for students. In addition, the immense potential of the millions of manuscript images available in interoperable IIIF format has yet to be fully exploited in teaching. This project aims to develop a series of digital tools that will make use of these images and of the expertise available in Göttingen. The tools will include apps for measuring, selecting and modifying scripts; evaluating page layout; and working with manuscript bindings. Other apps and extensive tutorials are planned. The project will also undertake further development of pre-existing tools, including improvements to applications for multispectral imaging, for digital editing and annotation, and for forms of image storytelling. Guided student participation will be key to the development of these tools, which means that they will be rooted in practical requirements, conceived by the users themselves, and suitable for both classroom and research use.

The eManuSkript project runs for two years from 1 April 2024. A website with more information is being developed. In the meantime, please get in touch with the team members if you have any questions or if you wish to collaborate.