Three-Dimensional Copy of a Three-Dimensional Copy: Database of Estampages of Proto-Bulgarian Inscriptions

This article highlights the experience of creating a digital scientific database in the St. Petersburg Branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which contains information about the collection of estampages of the Russian Archaeological Institute in Constantinople—the only Russian scientific institution that worked outside the Russian Empire in 1894–1914. One of the results of the archaeological excursions of the Institute was a collection of prints from inscriptions, including estampages from Proto-Bulgarian inscriptions of the ninth century; these estampages were made in 1899–1900. An estampage itself is a kind of 3d-copy of the original inscription on the stone, which performs the functions of an insurance and user copy from a stone document; it allows you to save information from the stone even if the monument itself is lost or destroyed. However, the preservation should be ensured also for estampages. Estampages, as paper documents, are also susceptible to destruction. The St. Petersburg archive has developed a unique technique for the restoration of prints, and also implemented a program to create their digital database, which included not only information about the type, condition and content of the document, but also its 3d copy, that allows to carry out all the research work that can be carried out with original estampage, excluding, perhaps, only organoleptic sensations.