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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:srophe="https://srophe.app">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<title>SPEAR: Syriac Persons Events and Relations</title>
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
<meta data-template="config:app-meta" />
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico" />
<!-- Bootstrap 5 -->
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<!-- Srophe styles -->
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</head>
<body id="body">
<nav class="navbar navbar-expand-lg bg-body-tertiary p-3 justify-content-between align-items-center">
<div class="container-fluid">
<a class="navbar-brand banner-container" href="/index.html">
<span class="syriaca-icon syriaca-syriaca banner-icon"></span>
<span class="banner-text" data-template="config:app-title">SPEAR<span class="d-none d-md-inline">: Syriac Persons Events and Relations</span></span>
</a>
<button class="navbar-toggler" type="button" data-bs-toggle="collapse" data-bs-target="#navbarNavAltMarkup" aria-controls="navbarNavAltMarkup" aria-expanded="false" aria-label="Toggle navigation">
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<a class="nav-link" aria-current="page" href="/">Home</a>
<a class="nav-link" href="/browse.html">Browse</a>
<a class="nav-link" href="/documentation.html">Documentation</a>
<a class="nav-link active" href="/about.html">About</a>
<a class="nav-link" href="/contact.html">Contact Us</a>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</nav>
<div class="container my-5">
<div class="row">
<div class="col">
<header>
<h1 class="mb-5">About</h1>
<h2>Project Overview</h2>
</header>
<p>
<em>SPEAR: Syriac Persons, Events, and Relations</em> is a prosopographical database providing
information about persons and their relationships within the context of historical events.
It contains TEI encoded scholarly interpretations of prosopographical data appearing in Syriac texts.
</p>
<p>
What follows is a brief introduction to the data model of <em>SPEAR</em>. For a detailed introduction,
see the <a href="/documentation/SPEAR/SPEAR.html">Encoding Manual/TEI Customization</a> on the
<a href="/documentation/">documentaiton page</a> and Daniel L. Schwartz, Nathan P. Gibson, and
Katayoun Torabi, <q class="titlea">Modeling a Born-Digital Factoid Prosopography using the TEI and Linked Data</q>,
Journal of the Text Encoding Initiative, (2022),
<a target="_blank" href="https://journals.openedition.org/jtei/3979">https://journals.openedition.org/jtei/3979</a>.
</p>
<h2>Factoid Prosopography</h2>
<p>
Traditional prosopographical methods rely on print publications to collect prose descriptions
of individuals appearing in historical sources. These magisterial works, such as the <em>Prosopography
of the Later Roman Empire</em>, eds. A. H. M. Jones, J. R. Martindale, and John Morris, (1971-1982),
required multiple volumes and were very difficult to update as knowledge developed. The print
medium also suffered from constraints regarding scale. This required difficult editorial decisions
about whom the editors included and whom they left out. The resulting works typically focus on elite,
male figures related to political and military developments.
</p>
<p>
A group of scholars at King's College London sought to leverage digital technologies for prosopographical research
by developing methodologies that could capture prosopographical information in a database. This would allow a
scale that could include all persons, not just political elites, and would expose that information to computational
analysis. The term they chose for the discrete pieces of personal information entered into the database was "factoid".
</p>
<p>
Most factoid prosopography uses a relational database for this work. <em>SPEAR</em>, along with <a href="https://syriaca.org/index.html">Syriaca.org</a>,
has preferred to use TEI XML as a data format due to its ability to integrate structured, semi-structured,
and unstructured (prose) data. This offers the benefits of scale and computational analysis while also
leaving room for some of the idiosyncratic features of ancient source material.
</p>
<p>
<em>SPEAR</em> uses a "factoid" approach to prosopography to capture data points asserted in historical texts.
A factoid differs from a fact in that it indicates an assertion made by a primary source text, rather
than a piece of information that a modern editor necessarily affirms as true. This approach allows
for the fullest dataset possible and captures data of particular importance for social history. For
example, a fictional biography of a saint can still reveal a great deal of information about how
people understood saints and the town councilors, clergy, and peasants with whom they interacted.
The factoid approach is critical for creating a database of use to social historians as well as historians
of the political or religious institutions upon which traditional print prosopographies have focused.
</p>
<h2>Integration with Syriaca.org</h2>
<p>
<a href="https://syriaca.org/index.html">Syriaca.org</a> produces what are referred to as "authority files". Authority files identify an entity
relevant to the field of Syriac Studies (persons, places, works, manuscripts, keyword concepts, and
bibliographic items), assign each entity a so-called "cool URI" (a Uniform Resource Identifier that
when entered into a web browser resolves to a page of information about the entity), and collects
information about that entity with an eye toward ensuring disambiguation between easily confused entities.
Each file also contains links to other files which produces a graph of knowledge about those entities.
</p>
<p><em>SPEAR</em> uses this collection of URIs to model prosopographical information about persons, places,
relationships, occupations, etc. that are derived from primary source texts.</p>
</div>
<div class="col-sm col-md-4">
<div class="card bg-light mb-3 p-3">
<div class="card-body">
<div class="row">
<h4 class="card-title mb-5">Project Team</h4>
<div class="col-12">
<h5 class="card-subtitle mb-2">General Editor</h5>
<ul>
<li>Dr. Daniel L. Schwartz, Texas A&M University</li>
</ul>
<h5 class="card-subtitle mb-2">Technical Editors</h5>
<ul>
<li>Dr. Daniel L. Schwartz, Texas A&M University</li>
<li>Dr. David A. Michelson, Vanderbilt University</li>
<li>William L. Potter, Vanderbilt University</li>
</ul>
<h5 class="card-subtitle mb-2">Research Staff</h5>
<ul>
<li>Anthony Cooper, Vanderbilt University, Digital Lab</li>
<li>Erin Geier, Vanderbilt University, Digital Lab</li>
<li>Winona Salesky, Independant Consultant (Senior Programmer)</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="col-12">
<h5 class="card-subtitle mb-2">Editorial Committee</h5>
<ul>
<li>Chair: Dr. Daniel L. Schwartz, Texas A&M University</li>
<li>Dr. Kutlu Akalin, Department of Syriac Language and Culture, Mardin Artuklu University (Turkey)</li>
<li>Dr. Volker L. Menze, Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University</li>
<li>Dr. Meredith L.D. Riedel, independent scholar</li>
<li>Ex Officio: Dr. David A. Michelson, Vanderbilt University</li>
<li>Ex Officio: Dr. Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent, Marquette University</li>
</ul>
<h5 class="card-subtitle mb-2">Graduate Research Assistant</h5>
<ul>
<li>Dr. Katayoun Torabi, Texas A&M University (2015-2016)</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="col-12">
<hr />
<h5>Copyright Status of <i>SPEAR</i></h5>
<div class="small">
<p><a href="https://syriaca.org/">Syriaca.org</a> is committed to the free and open preservation of the world’s shared
cultural heritage. Users are encouraged to reuse information from <i>SPEAR</i>.</p>
<p>
<i>SPEAR</i> is copyrighted and released under a
<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en">Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License</a>
(<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en</a>).
This license allows anyone to copy, redistribute, remix, transform, and build upon our work, even commercially, as long as
they credit SPEAR: Syriac Persons, Events, and Relations for the original creation (and do not suggest that
SPEAR endorses them or their use of the work). Attribution for use of
information from <i>SPEAR</i> should be modelled on the following
citation:</p>
<p>Daniel L Schwartz, ed. <i>SPEAR: Syriac Persons, Events, and Relations</i>.
Second Edition. College Station, TX: Syriaca.org, 2025-. <a
href="http://spear-prosop.org">https://spear-prosop.org</a>.</p>
<p>A model citation can be found on most individual factoid pages, and person and place aggregation pages. Users are
encouraged to <a href="#contact" data-toggle="modal">contact the editors</a> to
discuss other means of attribution.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
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