From paper to byte: A workshop report on the digital transformation of two thing editions

One specific form of publication for archaeological objects are catalogues, atlases and corpora. Kerstin Hofmann has introduced the term ‘Ding-Editionen’ (thing editions) for this category of publications that present their data in lists, short catalogue texts, and on plates. As publications of archaeological sources, they are central reference works, and serve as examples for the recording of new finds and features. Therefore, thing editions are powerful instruments that up till to today are shaping the representational style and the language for archaeological objects, be it their names or their formal description. In a project of the Central Scientific Services (CSS) of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) we are digitising thing editions as they comprise normed data on archaeological objects. This data is being made easily accessible to researchers, research projects, students and other interested parties via the digital research environment of the DAI – the iDAI.world. In our paper we report on the challenges, conceptualisations and implementation of two digitisation projects on roman-era material culture, the Corpus der römischen Funde im europäischen Barbaricum and the Conspectus Formarum Terrae Sigillatae Modo Confectae.