Deciphering Demotic Digitally

In starting the Demotic Palaeographical Database Project, we intend to build up an online database which pays special attention to the actual appearance of Demotic papyri and texts down to the level of the individual sign. Our idea is to analyse a papyrus with respect to its visual nature, inasmuch as it shall be possible to compare each Demotic sign to other representations of the same sign in other texts and to study its occurrences in different words. Words shall not only be analysed in their textual context but also by their orthography and it should be possible to study even the papyrus itself by means of its material features. Therefore, the Demotic Palaeographical Database Project aims for the creation of a modern and online accessible Demotic palaeography, glossary of word spellings and corpus of manuscripts, which will not only be a convenient tool for Egyptologists and researchers interested in the Demotic writing system or artefacts inscribed with Demotic script but also will serve the conservation of cultural heritage. In our paper, we will present our conceptual ideas and the preliminary version of the database in order to demonstrate its functionalities and possibilities