A Collaboration between Classics and Astrophysics: An Advanced Multispectral Imaging Laboratory Optimised through Crowd-Sourced Statistical Analysis

传统上，抄写写在纸莎草纸和其他手工艺品上的古代文本是一项缓慢、艰苦和困难的工作，主要由专家承担。最近，新的数字成像技术，包括多光谱和三维成像，如牛津大学纸莎草成像和高级多光谱成像项目（www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/advancedMSI）所产生的技术，使人们能够对以前无法辨认的文本进行新的解读。公众对这些增强文本可视化的电子技术的兴趣相当大。对古代圣经文本、古代抒情诗和戏剧诗以及古代历史记载的片段进行成像的新技术已经被广播和电视上的流行节目记录下来，包括探索频道和新星。巧合的是，我们的团队面临着一个巨大的问题，也是一个同样诱人的机会：大量的文本等待少数专家的转录，而大量感兴趣的公众热衷于自己处理，阅读和破译文本。在这个项目中，我们决心培养和实现这一前所未有的公共利益，并利用其巨大的潜力来加速，彻底改变古代文本的转录，破译和理解方式。我们的目标不仅仅是扩大对古代文本数字图像的访问，或者仅仅是提高访问的质量，而是利用科学方法，使大量感兴趣的用户（c。200，000人），以加强和优化他们自己的访问和机会，转录和破译古代文件，构成我们集体文化遗产的一部分。因此，我们建议在牛津大学建立一个合作的高级多光谱成像和多媒体实验室，用于研究纸莎草纸和其他刻有文字的古代文物。该项目将为规模和多样性前所未有的用户群体实现新的参与和访问形式，以获得不同种类古代文物的数字图像，包括牛津纸莎草成像项目创建的已出版的Oxyrhynchus和Herculaneum papyri的图像。跨学科项目合作的一个全新的类型和秩序，连接在经典（希腊和拉丁纸莎草学）和天体物理学领域的研究团队，将使转录和解码的古希腊文本捕获的诊断多光谱图像的纸莎草和其他古代文物的使用方法和技术的统计加权和分析，迄今仅限于自然和天文科学。对古代文献的广泛的公众访问将不仅在规模上而且在质量上大大增加。在这个项目的第一阶段，我们将专注于交付，转录和大量的传统RGB和黑色和白色图像的纸莎草纸和相关文物的解密。文本和图像将在http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk在线发布。通过与牛津大学（http://www.galaxyzoo.org）的Galaxy Zoo和Zoo Universe研究团队的密切合作和大规模分布式存储，传输和共享批量多光谱图像数据，我们将开发在线公共用户界面，这将使用户的统计加权贡献用于破译古代文本，并优化诊断多光谱成像工作流程和MSI图像后处理算法。这项工作将与牛津大学约翰·费尔基金会的一笔赠款协调进行，该基金会将用于建立纸莎草成像和银河动物园之间的数据传输。其结果将是一个可互操作的数据资源，通过分布式存储确保可持续访问：（1）Imaging Papyri NAS存储单元;（2）牛津大学目前正在设计的数据设施中的存储;（3）通过动物园的冗余云计算设施进行大规模批量存储。

Transcribing ancient texts written on papyrus and other artefacts has traditionally been slow, painstaking and difficult work undertaken primarily by specialists. Recently, new techniques of digital imaging, including multispectral and 3-D imaging, such as those produced by the Imaging Papyri and Advanced Multispectral Imaging Projects at the University of Oxford (www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/advancedMSI) have enabled new readings of previously indecipherable texts. Public interest in these electronic techniques of enhanced textual visualation has been considerable. New techniques of imaging fragments of ancient Biblical texts, ancient lyric and dramatic poetry, and ancient historical accounts have documented by popular programs on radio and television, including, for example, Discovery Channel and Nova. Paradoxically, our team faced a huge problem, and an equally tantalising opportunity: a huge number of texts await transcription by a small number of specialists while large numbers of the interested public were keen to handle, read, and decipher the texts by themselves. In the propose project we resolve to foster and enable this unprecedented public interest, and to harness its tremendous potential to speed, to utterly transform the way ancient texts are transcribed, deciphered, and understood. Our objective is not merely to broaden access to digital images of ancient texts, or simply to improve the quality of access, but to make use of scientific methods that will endow large populations of interested users (c. 200,000) with means of enhancing and optimising their own access and opportunity to transcribe and to decipher ancient documents that form part of our collective cultural heritage. Thus we propose to establish a collaborative advanced multispectral imaging and multimedia laboratory for papyri and other inscribed ancient artefacts at the University of Oxford. The project will achieve new forms of participation and access for user groups of unprecedented size and diversity to digital images of different kinds of ancient artefacts, including images of published Oxyrhynchus and Herculaneum papyri created by the Imaging Papyri at Oxford Project. Interdisciplinary project collaboration of an entirely new kind and order, linking research teams in the fields of Classics (Greek and Latin Papyrology) and Astrophysics, will enable transcription and decipherment of ancient Greek texts captured on diagnostic multispectral images of papyri and other ancient artefacts by the use of methods and techniques of statistical weighting and analysis heretofore confined to the natural and astronomical sciences. Broad public access for the ancient texts will be dramatically increased not only in scale, but also in quality. In this first phase of the project we will focus on delivery, transcription and decipherment of a large number of conventional RGB and black and white images of papyri and related artefacts. Text and images will be published online at http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk. Through close collaboration and large-scale distributed storage, transport, and sharing of bulk multispectral image data with the Galaxy Zoo and Zoo Universe research teams at the University of Oxford ( http://www.galaxyzoo.org ), we will develop online public user interfaces which will enable statistically weighted contributions from users to be used to decipher ancient texts and to optimise diagnostic multispectral imaging workflows and MSI image post-processing algorithms. This work will be done in coordination with a grant pending from the John Fell Fund, Oxford for establishing data-transport between Imaging Papyri and Galaxy Zoo. The result will be an interoperable data resource, insured for sustainable access through distributed storage with (1) Imaging Papyri NAS storage units; (2) storage in data facilities currently being designed by OUCS at Oxford; (3) large-scale bulk storage via Zoo's redundant cloud computing facilities.