Abstract:

Many historical documents have been digitized over the past two decades. The main objective of the digitalization process is motivated both by the need for these cultural monuments to be accessible and widely used, on the one hand, and by the existing capacity to provide their adequate digital copies, on the other.

In the general case, the benefits of digitalization are related to:
(1) preservation and conservation of document funds;
(2) providing access to historical document collections through computer networks;
(3) construction of digital library databases;
(4) collections mobility (so-called libraries without borders);
(5) easy navigation and full-text use of the digitized documents.

Ancient manuscripts present a specific case of objects that need to be digitally exhibited. For their storage a constant temperature of 18 degrees Celsius is required, 55% relative humidity and light up to 50 lux. Undoubtedly, the research tasks of manuscript digitization and analysis need to be carried out in strict compliance with all measures protecting the material body of these cultural monuments. Therefore, the interdisciplinary study of ancient manuscripts brings together experts from various fields of science, including chemists, philologists, librarians, computer scientists and others, working in collaboration to expand their knowledge and by implementation of advanced non-invasive research methodology and technical tools, to obtain new data capable of being subjected to various analyzes.

This paper focuses on the implementation of interdisciplinary methods and tools for the study of ancient manuscripts and their capacity to extract new data for comprehensive research of these monuments. The paper is organized in three relatively separate sections: The first section examines the specifics of ancient manuscripts and their study. The second section presents an analysis of the existing challenges in ancient documents investigation. The third section proposes an algorithmization of the knowledge extraction process from manuscript data and discusses the possibilities for generating new knowledge through application of automated methods and technologies.

Keywords:

Ancient manuscripts, new knowledge, palimpsests, digitalization.