Proteus: A Platform for Born Digital Critical Editions of Literary and Subliterary Papyri

Scholars working on vast archives of ancient fragmentary manuscripts have long faced the problem of managing and intuitively interfacing the exponential growth of data as fragments are re-edited over time. Multiple readings, multiple versions, and the reality of a multi-text are concepts not well-suited to the physical codex. Current digital archives and libraries for ancient Greek and Latin texts provide only a single reading of a text. Furthermore, the current information model for these digital texts fails to include the vital components necessary to create complete born digital critical editions which are citable and usable in Classics. Collectively, these problems have undermined the effectiveness and reputability of digital editions on the World Wide Web. In this paper, we introduce Proteus, a platform designed to facilitate the creation and scholarly use of complete born digital critical editions of literary and sub literary papyri.