Fayum Villages and the Prosopographia Ptolemaica: Connecting a Database with an On-Line Gazetteer

The Fayum Project, started in September 1998 at the K.U.Leuven (Belgium), is a data base-driven historical-topographical study of the Fayum oasis during the Graeco-Roman period. Central part of this study is a survey of all individual Fayum villages, combining both textual and archaeological sources, fed by a data base of all texts relevant to the Fayum, both in Egyptian (demotic - Coptic) and in Greek.

The data base is a continuation and extension of the Prosopographia Ptolemaica, which has been computerized and broadened to cover the Roman period and to insert the geographical information (or data?). As a whole, the data base is actually a framework consisting of eight separate data bases, that are closely knitted together in a relational structure. A geographical and a prosopographical section are combined through the text data base. These individual data bases allow us to structure the information and to access it instantly; with the use of detailed queries, all data can be linked to each other and verified in a way that would not have been possible before.

This not only provides us with a powerful research tool, but it also allows readers to check each of our statements or to customize queries for their own purposes. We have published our results on the Internet rather than in a book, in order to maximize the advantages of the combined on line data base and texts. Some 30 villages that have already been finished, can be consulted at the following address: http://fayum.arts.kuleuven.ac.be. In the running text all References to officials, priests, archives, places etc... in the running text are linked with the data base. By clicking one of these one is directed immediately to the appropriate records. In addition, for each village the diachronical spread of the papyri is represented in a chart, which is generated in real-time from the data base. Finally, where possible we located most villages on a map of the Fayum and addes plans of houses or land as well as photographs of the site. Thus the Fayum website can be considered as a kind of an overlay of the database, in which the data are available within a full-text summary.

We are interested in presenting the different web sites connected with our present research project on the topography and history of the Fayum (Egypt) throughout the Greco-Roman period, directed by Prof. Willy Clarysse. A preliminary version can be visited at http://fayum.arts.kuleuven.ac.be. Linked to both an on line ersion of the Prosopographia Ptolemaica (http://prosptol.arts.kuleuven.ac.be), a fully functioning data base, and the Leuven Homepage of Papyrus Collections (http://lhpc.arts.kuleuven.ac.be) this intends to make the results of our project available and at the same time allows to search the database for specific information ready by the end of September