News
Greek Manuscripts from Terra d’Otranto
A new website has been launched, dedicated to the Greek manuscripts in Salento, located in modern-day Puglia, Italy. These manuscripts are significant remnants from the “Byzantine Salento” era, a time when Greek-speaking communities thrived long after the official Byzantine rule ended in 1071. Between the 10th and 15th centuries, the Salento region, historically known as Terra d'Otranto, became a major hub for Greek manuscript production. This flourishing tradition was fueled by the area's strong Byzantine cultural roots and sustained by a network of Greek Orthodox monasteries.
The website, promoted by the University of Salento, is currently under development. However, it already provides access to manuscript descriptions, links to images, and digitized papers, among other resources. You can explore the site here.
https://www.bdsud.it/bdsud.it#/bto/home
This international conference, as the concluding event of the PURPLE project (PURple Parchment LEgacy project) (PRIN 2020) https://purpleproject.it, brings together scholars from various fields, time periods, and traditions of book decoration. The aim of the meeting is to offer a comprehensive and multidisciplinary overview of purple manuscripts and the use of purple in manuscript decoration. In addition to invited keynote talks, there will be an open session dedicated to more focused themes and case studies.
This symposium aims to tackle the challenges of studying the Athonite collections (including religious icons, liturgical objects, manuscripts and other documents containing valuable insights into the past) and other such religious repositories. These are challenges that restrict scholarly inquiry and therefore limit the development of new perspectives and the full appreciation of the unique collections and the history of the communities themselves.
The reservations of monastic communities over the public accessibility and display of their sacred objects are well known and understandable in view of the centuries-old traditions the monasteries are safeguarding. This symposium seeks to find new ways forward in reconciling these conflicting views, addressing questions such as: how could institutions preserve the agency of the monastic community whilst promoting accessibility and scholarship? Could openly accessible digital archives be fostered while still respecting the ownership of the living religious community?
A key aspect of Athonite collections is that many of its treasures have been scattered throughout the centuries beyond the Holy Mountain. Could openly accessible digital collections of this diaspora of objects exist while still acknowledging the community’s rights? And how can one proceed to untie the ownership of the object versus the ownership of its image (and moving image)? In the case of Mount Athos, this issue is especially relevant as access to the Holy Mountain is prohibited to women. Female scholars thus heavily rely on connections beyond the borders of Mount Athos to access content to pursue their research, study, and teaching.
Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL) is an international forum focused on digital libraries and their associated technical, practical, and social issues. Its 30th International Conference https://tpdl2026.ualg.pt/ will be held at Faro, Portugal, September 22-25, 2026, and will cover the many meanings of the term “digital libraries”, bringing together researchers and practitioners from diverse fields ranging from the LAM (Library, Archive, and Museum) community to Information and Computer Sciences.
Topics in 2026 include but are not limited to, theories, models, standards, tools, and applications on the following themes:
- Data Lifecycle Management (Create, Store, Share, Reuse)
- Reproducibility
- Digital Preservation and Curation
- Data Provenance and Documentation
- AI and Machine Learning Applications in Digital Libraries
- Knowledge Organization: Knowledge Graphs, Ontologies, Thesauri
- User Experience and Participation in Digital Libraries
- Digital Libraries in Humanities, Social Sciences, Technical and Engineering Sciences, Natural Sciences, Life Sciences
- Digital Cultural Heritage
- Bias in metadata or knowledge organization systems
- Trustworthiness of digital information
- Advanced Search Algorithms and Techniques
- Data Search and Discovery
- Semantic Search and Indexing
- Historical Document Analysis
Important dates:
- Submission deadline: May 3, 2026
- Notification of acceptance: June 29, 2026
- Camera-ready submission: July 19, 2026
Materia Medica of Cosmetics
The ancient make-up has long intrigued archaeologists who sought to identify the substances used for the kohl to underline the eyes of women in Antiquity. Research identified organic and inorganic materia medica, often including lead despite its toxicity. A recent multidisciplinary programme reached the conclusion that “the black colouration was most likely obtained by mixing manganese oxides with natural graphite”. Analyzed material came from the Iron Age cemetery of Kani Koter in Northwestern Iran.
Digital Technology Conference
Intelligence Space. Creativity in Dialogue with Technology
A conference by the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg (BTU University) hosted by the Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz-Institut (HHI) in Berlin (Germany) from 18 to 20 March 2026.