A unique Approach to Lexicography

The lexicon is a unique undertaking. It is not designed to report a conclusion about the identification of a term with a botanical or animal species, quantity or process. Instead, it canvasses all identifications made in the secondary literature as well as translation into other languages, temporally and geographically indexed.

We use this data to design our experiments. The data generate sets of identifications for various plant, instrument and process names, which we then narrow down to the most probable candidates using contemporary botanical and archaeological studies.

Flexible Taxonomies

The lexicon stores metadata about each term we collect: classifications, references, uses, geographic regions, translations in later sources (Coptic, Arabic, Hebrew, Latin and Romance languages), and translations and identifications made in recent secondary literature.

Using the lexicon’s metadata, we are able to create flexible taxonomies and order the information in ways that is relevant to different research questions and experimental procedures.

Tracing Timelines

Using the lexicon’s metadata, we can also trace different possible family trees for words related to ingredients, instruments, and techniques. For instance, we can trace the word for an ingredient in Egyptian into its possible Greek and Latin descendants and compare the contexts in which it is found (medical and cosmetic recipes, literary and religious references). Alternatively, we can begin from a modern botanical classification and track backwards to see how and where in the literature it was identified with different ancient terms.