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The location of The Writings

Clicking on the picture you can see in detail the area in which there were found the writings of the shepherds.

The shepards' writings: the catalogue database

The computerised database, created by Alberto Pellizzari (an outside collaborator of the MUCGT) is divided into 3 parts ZONE/ POINT/ INSCRIPTION and can accept JPEG image files.

This division follows the hierarchical scheme in which the inscriptions were categorised by their precise locations.

By zone is intended a relatively small geographic area (for example a portion of pasture, one or more ‘vales’ or depressions between hills (valli), a portion of a vale etc.). Such an area might accommodate one or more points. In the database the names entered are those of the relevant commune and the given name for the area (e.g. SALIME).

With point we refer to the precise geographical point (derived from a GPS reading) in which a single entry, other close by inscriptions or the palimpset built up from a clustering of them can be found.

The name of each point consists of the area to which they have been added, in ascending order, the ordinals expressed in Roman numerals (eg SALIME.I; SALIME.II, etc.).

Then there are the items relating to the description of the media on which the writing was made (e.g. rock wall, boulder etc.) with their latitude, longitude and altitude. One last item – accessibility – indicates the distance, given in metres, from a path, a road, a stream or spring.

The third part of the data entry, indicated by the term inscription is dedicated to the description of the piece of writing itself, considered as a minimum unit of collected data and identified in the usual way, with the toponym, the Roman numeral, and, at this point, an Arabic numeral ( e.g. SALIME.I.1).

This is followed by an item type (in which the entry is typologically classified: e.g. mark, historiola, etc..), a number of fields related to the description of the inscription (date, single letter, village, count of sheep, goats, or sheeps, historiola, signature, initials, glyphs, pictograms, family mark, frame), one on conservation (e.g. eroded, faded, etc..), some other fields related to the location of the text (location, palimpsest, height from the ground), one on dimensions (maximum length and width) and, finally, one for colour.