Dear Digital Medievalists,

Many of you on this list have patiently helped members of our team, so I am pleased to let you all know that we have now officially published our historical gazetteer. A press release is below.

A special thanks goes to Tom Elliott and Winona Salesky our XML architects and Hugh Cayless who has answered many questions along the way.

Thank you to the DM-L community for all of your help,

Dave

David A. Michelson Assistant Professor of the History of Christianity Vanderbilt University

Press Release 04/08/2014 Syriaca.org publishes The Syriac Gazetteer (http://syriaca.org/geo/)

Editors: Thomas A. Carlson and David A. Michelson

Senior Programmers: Winona Salesky and Thomas Elliott

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Syriaca.orghttp://syriaca.org/ is pleased to announce publication of The Syriac Gazetteerhttp://syriaca.org/geo/(http://syriaca.org/geo/), an online geographical dictionary to document Syriac culture in the Middle East, Asia, and around the globe. The Syriac Gazetteerhttp://syriaca.org/geo/ is a born-digital publication employing eXistDB, TEI XML, and Linked Open Data URIs. All publications of Syriaca.org are made available online in a free and open format using the Creative Commonshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses. Project data and code are available in a public Github repositoryhttps://github.com/srophe/.

What is Syriac?

Syriac is a language which once flourished on the Mesopotamian plateau. A dialect of Aramaic, Syriac was widely used during much of the first millenium of the common era. Syriac speaking communities could be found in what today would be Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, India, Central Asia, China, and Mongolia. Sources in Syriac hold immense value for increasing our historical understanding of the Mediterranean, the Middle East and Asia. In particular, Syriac sources document key moments in the development and interaction of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and other religions of Late Antiquity.

What is The Syriac Gazetteer?

The Syriac Gazetteerhttp://syriaca.org/geo/ is the first in a suite of reference works to be published as a part of Syriaca.org: The Syriac Reference Portalhttp://syriaca.org/. The gazetteer contains multilingual entries (in English, Syriac, and Arabic) covering over 2400 places relevant to Syriac Studies, from ancient centers of Syriac culture (such as the city of Edessahttp://syriaca.org/place/78) to modern diaspora communities (such as the monastery of Mor Awgenhttp://syriaca.org/place/680 in Switzerland). The Syriac Gazetteerhttp://syriaca.org/geo/ is an ever-expanding resource created by and for users based on the principles of Linked Open Data. This publication is intended to serve a broad scholarly audience including students of Middle Eastern studies, classics, medieval history, religious studies, biblical studies, and linguistics as well as Syriac heritage communities and the interested general public.

Users are encouraged to begin exploring The Syriac Gazetteerhttp://syriaca.org/geo/ through these links:

Main page: http://syriaca.org/geo/

About the Gazetteer: http://syriaca.org/geo/about.html

Browse the Collection: http://syriaca.org/geo/browse.html

Browse via Interactive Map: http://syriaca.org/geo/browse.html?view=map

Edessa, the model entry: http://syriaca.org/place/78

Documentation: http://syriaca.org/geo/help/

Related Online Resources

Syriaca.orghttp://syriaca.org/ is also preparing a number of other publications:

* Clavis Syriaca: A two volume reference guide to Syriac authors and their works for use in cataloguing Syriac manuscripts. An initial fasicule has already been published as part of The Virtual International Authority Filehttp://viaf.org/viaf/search?query=local.names+all+%22ephrem%22+and+local.sources+any+%22srp%22&sortKeys=holdingscount.

* The Syriac Prosopography: A text-based prosopography similar to the The Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England (PASE)http://www.pase.ac.uk/.

* Gateway to the Syriac Saints: A two volume reference guide to Syriac saints and their vitae.

* Digital Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts in the British Library: A digital catalogue of Syriac manuscripts using the TEI XML standardshttp://jtei.revues.org/372 for manuscript cataloguing.

* A Union Catalogue of Syriac Manuscripts: A digital catalogue of Syriac manuscripts following the model of the Fihristhttp://www.fihrist.org.uk/ union catalogue.

These publications are the result of the collaboration and good will of the many scholars who have helped create them. Technical design of the project was completed by Winona Salesky and Thomas Elliott, Senior Programmers. Funding has come from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Fondazione Internazionale Balzan, and the National Endowment for the Humanities (U.S.A.).

The editors of the project welcome inquiries from the media and offers of collaboration from the scholarly community. They may be reached at info@syriaca.orgmailto:info@syriaca.org.

Sincerely,

David A. Michelson, Vanderbilt University, Co-editor

Thomas A. Carlson, Princeton University, Co-editor