Ancient Greek Inscriptions

AIAX - TELAMON

System for Representation of Epigraphic Documents in TEI XML Format

Development by the Department of Classical Philology at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" and bee-studio.eu.

Under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license

Download Telamon-AIAX-master.zip (67 MB), see installation and guide if needed

The AIAX system displays, stores, and processes .xml-files, formatted according to the recommended standards of EpiDoc TEI XML (https://sourceforge.net/p/epidoc/wiki/Home/).

Its functionalities, related to visualization, indexing, and filtered searching in .xml-files, are analogous to the front-end service of EpiDoc EFES (https://github.com/EpiDoc/EFES), which inspired the creation of AIAX, but the technical implementation is different and is carried out with the help of an SQL database storing the elements, attributes, and values of the XML code of individual files and processing them with the help of PHP.

Key functionalities of AIAX, similar to EFES, include:

• visualization of the EpiDoc XML-encoded text of the epigraphic monument in two versions: publisher's and diplomatic text;
• visualization of the publisher's text through visual transformation of elements, attributes, and values from the XML code into epigraphic publisher's sigla according to the standards of the so-called Leiden+ system, for example: → [ ];
• visualization of the encoded metadata of the monument (physical characteristics, location, etc.), as well as of critical apparatus, commentary, and bibliography with the possibility for multilingual presentation;
• display of available photographs of the monument, stored in a database folder in .jpg format;
• compiling various indexes (words, places, attested persons, names, etc.) based on authoritative files in TEI XML, stored in a database folder, and the references to them in the code of individual monuments.

AIAX is a base framework with included modules for user and site content management, allowing easy integration of additional modules according to the project's needs.

TELAMON is the specific implementation with an included module for indexing, searching, and presenting epigraphic .xml-files. The system is specifically written for the needs of the Department of Classical Philology in presenting documents on deciphered ancient Greek inscriptions in Bulgaria. It operates with the EpiDoc XML template file, specifically created for the needs of the "Telamon" collection of ancient Greek inscriptions from the territory of Bulgaria, according to which the individual monuments in the collection are coded. The system can be adapted to work with the standard EpiDoc template (https://sourceforge.net/p/epidoc/wiki/Examples/), as well as with all other potential ones, based on the EpiDoc scheme.

The current system expands the functionalities of EFES with:

Admin Panel

• Protected access
• User management
• Management of access levels (System and users, site, xml documents)
• Site content management
• Modules for file management, separately for the site and epigraphic documents and images.
• Option for editing uploaded images, on-site editing option for uploaded epigraphic documents with a choice of several editors.
• Indexing of epigraphic documents and error reporting
• Resizing images for epigraphic documents

Front End

• Extended presentation of the main entries - deciphered monuments, in lists of monuments.
• Extended presentation of individual monuments.
• Possibility to present a map of places related to the document. Currently, only the map of the locations of the inscriptions is visualized.
• Field for editing epigraphic xml documents directly from the presentation page and preview of the editing result (only for administrators of the XML part).
• Block presentation of the inscription from the monument with links to the mentioned elements.
• Presentation of individual elements from the authority lists with a link to related documents and a map of places of origin, discovery, and mentioned locations.
• Enhanced search in texts, titles, and years
• Enhanced display of search results with highlighting of the searched part.
• Content separate from the epigraphic documents, which is configured from the admin panel.

! Unlike EFES, TELAMON is not a universal platform. Modifying it is relatively easy but requires knowledge of PHP and SQL databases to make changes in indexing, searching, and presenting results.

The XML module is designed and written specifically for the project, it will not work correctly with documents of a different structure and logic.

For assistance with installation, modification, or an entirely new project, you can contact us at sis@bee-studio.eu

Installation

PHP 7.3 or higher and SQL 10 MariaDB are required.

Make sure you have GD2 not only installed but also activated in your php.ini -> extension=gd.

1. Create a new database and import telamon.sql
2. Configure app/core/Config.php sample settings are for XSAMMP: folder \htdocs\telamon_OPEN and ‘telamon_OPEN” database without password
3. Configure the .htacsses file in the main directory

Admin panel http://yourdomain/admin

user: admin

password: adminpass

demo: https://telamon.space

Settings

Languages

Admin->Site->Languages

To add a language

1. Make an entry in Admin->Site->Languages.
2. In Admin->Site->Files, copy the 'en' folder and rename it with the code of the new language.
3. Edit the translation files in the new folder.

To deactivate a language

Go to Admin->Site->Languages->Edit->Disable or rename the translation folder with a random name different from the language codes in Admin->Site->Languages.

Pages

Admin->Site->Pages

page_url_name is the name for calling from the menu and creating an address http://yourdomain/pages/view/page_url_name

page_url_name: index is the homepage for the respective language

In the body of the page, you can place variables and constants by enclosing them in .
https://telamon.uni-sofia.bg/en/ http://yourdomain/current_lang_code
https://telamon.uni-sofia.bg/ http://yourdomain/

Menu

Admin->Site->Menu

Sets the links in the main menu according to the used languages.

url: pages/view/for_us - shows the page with page_url_name= for_us

Other url options are shown in the sample database.

EpiStone

Admin->EpiRock->XML files load and edit source materials.

Admin->EpiRock->Indexes Index new materials to become visible on the site.

Empties existing tables from the XML part, loads the authorities, loads the monuments, resizes pictures.

How does it work?

During indexing

1. Epigraphic tables are cleared.
2. A resized copy of images from the XMLs/images folder is created in XMLs/images/tmb.
3. Information is extracted from files in XMLs/xml/authority and recorded in the corresponding auxiliary tables for related elements.
4. Information about each individual monument is extracted from files in XMLs/xml/epidoc.
5. Elements necessary for searching, file name, plain text, date, etc., are recorded.
6. The link between the document and the records in the auxiliary tables - mentioned persons, places, etc., is also recorded.

Indexing is for the operation of the search engine, the presentation of a specific inscription is done directly from its corresponding xml document. If you make a change to the content of a monument, you can do it on the spot and see the results of the change immediately without having to re-index.

Xml files in the XMLs/ folder are also accessible through the admin panel, you can familiarize yourself with their content to gain a better understanding of how the system works.

Website Presentation

See the operation and capabilities at https://telamon.epistone.net

The presentation of the abbreviated view of a monument, lists of elements, presentation of an element, and filtering during searching are based on the information and links collected during indexing. This allows for fast operation without opening xml files, only the presentation of a specific inscription is done directly from its corresponding xml document.