CLARIN-IT and the Definition of a Digital Critical Edition for Ancient Greek Poetry: a New Project for Ancient Fragmentary Texts with a Complex Tradition

Ancient Greek studies, and Classics in general, is a perfect field to demonstrate how Digital Humanities could become the humanist way of building models for complex realities, analysing them with computational methods and communicating the results to a broader public. Ancient texts have a complex tradition, which includes many witnesses (texts that handed down another texts) and different typology of supports (papyri, manuscripts and also epigraphy). These texts are fundamental for our cultural Heritage, since they are the basis of all European Literatures, and it is crucial to spread their knowledge, in a reliable and easy way. Our project on ancient Greek fragmentary poetry (DEA - Digital Edition of Archilochus: New models and tools for authoring, editing and indexing an ancient Greek fragmentary author) develops and grows out of existing experiences and try to define a new digital and critical edition which includes the use of Semantic Web and Linked Open Data. Our goal is to provide a complete and reliable tool for scholars, suitable for critical study in the field, and also user friendly and useful for non-specialist users. The project represents one of the attempts within the context of CLARIN-IT to contribute to the wider impact of CLARIN on the specific Italian community interested to Digital Classics and may improve services in fostering new (and sustaining existing) knowledge in SSH digital research.