On the Occasion of digitalEPIGRAPHY's Hundredth Instagram Post

Photo credit: TT 65, Júlia Schmied

Twenty-three years ago, when I started working in Egypt as an epigrapher, I wasn’t given too many guidelines regarding doing the best job when documenting a painted tomb. Our Hungarian project leader wanted to have the most detailed, most faithful, most informative, and most complete documentation that was accessible to everyone, while useful for an art historian (or, for that matter, any person with a general interest) just as much as it was for us, scholars.

In 1998 personal computers were already mainstream but were scarcely used in my field of interest – drawings were created facsimile, most often copied directly from the walls by using transparent material directly attached to the decorative surface. I remember admiring the Epigraphic Survey for its alternate methods and precision. Still, I also remember thinking that I’ll never have the resources to implement their technique in my personal projects. I did what I thought was best: pulled out large sheets of transparent paper and hand-copied every bit and traces of pigment I could find on the wall with no experience whatsoever. The results were regular penciled drawings including painted outlines, damaged areas, traces of preliminary sketches, and labels for each color on the wall.

My work tools have considerably changed since, but I'd like to believe that my attitude towards the monuments remained the same! Starting an Instagram feed for my pet project, the digitalEPIGRAPHY website, was a huge gamble that paid (and still pays) off tremendously! I want to thank all our followers for their continued interest and sharing this journey on Instagram! Here's to the next HUNDRED posts! 

This post was originally released as part of digitalEPIGRAPHY's growing Instagram collection. If you'd like to see our latest photos as soon as we post them, please follow us on Instagram.

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