CLARIN-IT and the Definition of a Digital Critical Edition for Ancient Greek Poetry

Ancient Greek studies, and Classics in general, is a perfect field of investigation in Digital Humanities. Indeed, DH approaches could become a means of building models for complex realities, analyzing them with computational methods and sharing the results with a broader public. Ancient texts have a complex tradition, which includes many witnesses (texts that handed down other texts) and different typologies of supports (papyri, manuscripts, and epigraphs). These texts are the basis of all European Literatures and it is crucial to spread their knowledge, in a reliable and easy way. Our project on ancient Greek fragmentary poetry (DEA - Digital Edition of Archilochus: New models and tools for authoring, editing and indexing an ancient Greek fragmentary author), growing out of the existing experience, tries to define a TEI-based digital critical edition combined with NLP techniques and semantic web technologies. Our goal is to provide a complete and reliable tool for scholars, suitable for critical studies in Classics, and a user-friendly environment also for non-specialist users. The project represents one of the attempts within the context of CLARIN-IT to contribute to the wider impact of CLARIN on the specific Italian community interested in Digital Classics. It is intended to improve services in fostering new knowledge in SSH digital research and sustaining the existing one.