making sigillographic material accessible to researchers – digitising, catalogues, editions of...

Past and FutureSeals of the Archive of the Bohemian Crown and their representation in

Monasterium.netDaniel Jeller

13. 10. 2016 / Olomouc

http://monasterium.net

What is Monasterium?

Collaborative Archive

Quick factsOnline database for medieval and early modern charters

Collaborative platform and editor

Founded 2002 as the “Monasterium-Project”

Around 600.000 charters from over 130 European archives

800.000 digital images

Based on open standards

Free to use

Public: Database and Search

Private: Userspace and Editor

Czech charters in MOM-CA∞Collaboration with the National Archive due to contacts to

the monastery Břevnov∞Digitisation starting in Brno and Praha 2007∞First fonds: Archivy českých klášterů zrušených za Josefa II.∞2008: Digitisation of Archiv České koruny∞Continuous digitisations in the last 10 years∞Currently charters from 10 archives online∞Many charters still to be published

Online data overview

Česká republika Národní archiv Archiv České koruny0

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

70000

24839

14603

2551

58366

31655

5936

21772

12839

2340

Charters Images Seal data

Seals in Monasterium.net

Two components

Image Metadata

Depiction as complete as possibleFront Back

Drawbacks‡ Digitisation has to be cost effective‡ Images need to be “good enough to use”‡ Not intended as “preservation digitisation”‡ No special care is taken to make the images of seals as good

as possible – the charter as a whole is the main focus

Main equipment: fixed lighting

Camera view

LightLight

Shadow but good contrast…

…if the seal permits it

Detailed metadata possible

Sigillant

Legend

DimensionsMaterial

Condition

Problem: Usually just simple text

Seals of the Archiv České koruny

∆Metadata similar to other fonds in Monasterium

∆Charters are specially conserved

∆Seals fixed in place∆Removal of protective case

only permitted in special cases

∆Not problematic for the text∆Seals can be blurred due to

the plastic

Plan: Integrate seal database and imagesSeparate database only for ACK sealsHighly detailed metadataDigitisation project to take separate, high quality images of

all sealsFinished 2018

MetadataBefor

e After

Background

Text / Legend

Material and condition

Iconography

A single text entry

Images

Before After

Integration in Monasterium

Both images and metadata will be merged with the existing data in Monasterium

Thank you!daniel.jeller@icar-us.eu