Engineering Historical Memory and the Interactive Exploration of Archival Documents: The Online Application for Pope Gregory X’s Privilege for the Monastic Community of Mount Sinai (1274) as a Prototype

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a research project in Digital Humanities. The project explores archival documents within the online system Engineering Historical Memory (EHM). EHM enables users to read primary historical sources according to different knowledge and expertise levels interactively. Here, as a showcase, the authors present the interdisciplinary research (Diplomatics, History, Animation) that empowered the online publication of the original privilege issued by pope Gregory X to the monastic community of Mount Sinai in 1274. The application embodies the following research tools: 1) Digital recomposition and restoration of the photographic survey of the original parchment split into two pieces and held in two different locations in Egypt (Holy Monastery of St Catherine at Mt Sinai, and the Archive of the same monastery in Cairo); 2) Force-directed graph to navigate the diplomatics structure of the papal privilege; 3) Interactive geospatial visualisations of the place names (satellite views and political maps); 4) Search engines for scholarly texts, images, and videos related to the individual diplomatics, historical, and geographical entities itemised in the application; 5) 3D modelling of the lost lead seal of the privilege; 6) Customary web-based visualisation tool for the 3D model of the seal.