Digitization of the inscriptions on the monuments of Armenian cultural heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh region

The Armenian cultural heritage in Artsakh 1 is in danger after explicit threats of irreversible destruction coordinated by Azerbaijan authorities 2. As part of a series of actions coordinated by the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the Digital Humanities Institute is currently prototyping methods to offer rapid deployment of DH technology in situations of crisis when a good network of local partners can be identified and coordinated. The expertise permits developing a rapid action in the Nagorno-Karabakh region where heritage is in danger. As part of these actions, the aim of this project is to collect, systematize and digitize the inscriptions on the monuments of Armenian cultural heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh. 3D models will be built when possible. This digitized data will help not only to preserve the invaluable inscriptions, but also can be used for further investigations, research. Armenian inscriptions have long been regarded as valuable materials in various academic fields within Armenian studies. However, despite numerous recent projects digitizing inscriptions in ancient languages such as Greek, Latin, Persian, and Hindi, the resources and methods of Digital Epigraphy have not yet been applied to Armenian inscriptions properly. This project is one of the first steps in this direction. It helps to point out the methodological issues which are specific to the application of information technologies to Armenian epigraphy. We assume that the computational approach is going to change the way Armenian epigraphy is studied, to the extent of renovating the discipline on the basis of new, unexplored questions. During the first phase of the project, an important network of partners in Armenia and Artsakh was established, including the State Service for the Protection of the Historical Environment of the Republic of Artsakh and several photographers and epigraphers. With the help of these partners, our team has collected, systematized, and digitized over two hundred inscriptions from this region. This data will be used to create a single searchable database of Armenian inscriptions of Artsakh with essential information such as the language data including diplomatic and interpretive transcriptions, the translation into English; the location of the inscription on the monument (if applicable); geographical and chronological data; the type of monument and the type of inscription. The database will also include historical background information, bibliographic references, and photographs. For these purposes a software tool being developed by researchers under the name DHAnnoto to automatically extract all the graphical information from the historical land registers has been used 3. This tool uses Wikidata tagging systems to automatically extract information and link it to appropriate WikiData tags as a detailed information reference. With this tool's search functions,