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SUMMARY:Material Histories\, Digital Futures: Rethinking Cylinder Seals - 
 Lara Bampfield (University of Oxford)
DTSTART:20260303T171500Z
DTEND:20260303T193000Z
UID:TALK242251@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Lucy Emanuel
DESCRIPTION:This paper explores how digital imaging\, structured annotatio
 n\, and computational analysis can enrich the study of Mesopotamian cylind
 er seals. Drawing on recent work undertaken for the Cuneiform Digital Libr
 ary Initiative\, I demonstrate how high resolution digital unwrappings gen
 erated by the SIANE structured-light scanner can be converted into reprodu
 cible datasets through controlled-vocabulary annotation in VIA. These anno
 tations\, exported into interoperable standards such as COCO and W3C Web A
 nnotation\, enable researchers to search for motifs within seal imagery ra
 ther than catalogue entries alone\, making it possible to examine spatial 
 patterning\, motif co-occurrence\, and the reuse of iconographic forms at 
 scale.\nUsing case studies from collections in Paris and Oxford\, the pape
 r also considers how digital documentation reveals the complex material bi
 ographies of seals. High resolution imaging of seal ends\, surface geometr
 y\, and erased inscriptions makes visible the extent to which seals were c
 ut\, re-cut\, and repurposed from the Ur III to the Old Babylonian period.
  When combined with computer vision approaches trained on annotated corpor
 a\, these methods provide new opportunities for identifying re-carving pra
 ctices\, tracing motif transmission\, and examining workshop traditions.\n
 Taken together\, these approaches illustrate how digital documentation and
  computational tools can complement established methods in glyptic studies
 \, opening up further avenues for careful\, corpus-based exploration.\n\nT
 o attend the presentation via Teams\, please use the link below. Please no
 te that on this occasion it will only be possible to join the Teams meetin
 g from a Cambridge email address.\n\nhttps://teams.microsoft.com/meet/3667
 1207193490?p=Vc2UksmBmXGxrI49gd
LOCATION:McDonald Seminar Room\, Department of Archaeology
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