Launch of the international portal on Jewish funerary culture

Joodse grafstenen © iStockphoto.com/VIDOK
Jewish tombstones © iStockphoto.com/VIDOK

An international portal on Jewish funerary culture has been launched by Dr Ortal-Paz Saar (Department of History and Art History). Its acronym is PEACE, standing for a Portal of Epigraphy, Archaeology, Conservation and Education on Jewish Funerary Culture. 

Dr. Ortal-Paz Saar
Dr Ortal-Paz Saar

The portal is now in its pilot stage, and provides a broad epigraphic search into Jewish funerary inscriptions from antiquity to the twentieth century. The data derives from specific regions, such as Israel and ancient Palestine, Germany, and Italy. By combining different epigraphic databases into one uniformly structured portal, it now becomes possible to identify historical patterns over time and space. In the future the portal’s other sections will also be developed and include searchable data and information.  

Intersection of disciplines 

The PEACE portal brings together researchers from various disciplines: epigraphy (which is the project’s initial focus), but also funerary archaeology, cultural and religious studies, conservation and cultural heritage, and providers of education. The search functions will be expanded to enable the exploration of complex queries, found at the intersection of these disciplines. 

Partners 

PEACE is an international project initiated and coordinated by Ortal-Paz Saar (Utrecht University) and including three initial partners: Utrecht University (Leonard V. Rutgers, Ortal-Paz Saar), Salomon Ludwig Steinheim Institute (Michael Brocke), and Brown University (Michael Satlow), with more partners currently joining in (e.g., Elíshabá Mata López, University of Salamanca). The PEACE portal pilot has been built by Alex Hebing and its construction continued by Berit Janssen, both from Utrecht University Digital Humanities Lab. They received support from Thomas Kollatz (Digitale Akademie, Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur/ Mainz) and Elli Mylonas (Center for Digital Scholarship, Brown University). The project is sponsored by a three-year Research Consortium Grant from Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe. 

Comments and suggestions on the PEACE portal are welcome, please email o.p.saar@uu.nl.