| Summary: | LGPN began using information technology to store and manipulate its data as far back as 1975. Alongside the publication programme, and despite the electronic upheavals which have marked the last 40 years, LGPN has maintained the material from all the published volumes in a consistent state in a relational database, which was designed in 1984 to reflect the potential research values of all the fields which make up an LGPN entry i.e. not only names, but places, dates, references, relationships, statuses etc.
The database is the final repository of material once it has been edited, and from it:
- printed volumes are generated and typeset by computer program;
- research questions may be answered, for our own work and for researchers who contact us;
- data are generated for online dissemination: currently, statistics (numbers of people and names, distribution by gender, place), name indexes and bibliographies;
- primary names are output for online analysis in a variety of fonts.
Online facilities based on the current database include:
- online searches: search and analyse over 35,000 published names, the LGPN website, or the LGPN database;
- files for downloading: bibliographies, forward and reverse name indexes, from LGPN I-VA;
- addenda and corrigenda: to LGPN II, Attica (1987), with supplementary bibliography, posted by Sean Byrne.
- LGPN IIA: the completely revised LGPN II, provided to the LGPN database by Sean Byrne. Full data are not yet available on this site, but the forward and reverse name indexes are available as downloadable files, and statistics about persons, names and places, are posted.
- more general statistics: in preparation.
Further guidelines may be found at http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/project/guidelines.html
Meanwhile, Elaine Matthews and Sebastian Rahtz worked on a major conversion project using the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) and Extensible Mark-up Language (XML), as the basis for LGPN's long-term preservation, online dissemination, and interoperability with other online resources.
As an ongoing project, data is not yet deposited in ORA-Data or other data repository. Researchers are welcome to use the online data for their own research purposes but should acknowledge the original source, and re-use should not be for commercial purposes. Meanwhile, enquiries should go to lgpn@classics.ox.ac.uk. The purpose and scope of the 'Lexicon of Greek Personal Names' is to collect and publish with documentation all known ancient Greek personal names (including non-Greek names recorded in Greek, and Greek names in Latin), drawn from all available sources (literature, inscriptions, graffiti, papyri, coins, vases and other artefacts), within the period from the earliest Greek written records down to, approximately, the sixth century A.D. The work thus starts with the period of epichoric scripts, embraces the classical and hellenistic periods of Greek history, following dialect and the development of koine, and continues through the period of the Roman Empire when Greek nomenclature underwent changes as a result of Roman rule, and religious, social and other factors. Excluded names include mythological and heroic names, Mycenaean names, later Byzantine names and geographical names. The project was established in 1972 as a Major Research Project of the British Academy, at the suggestion of Peter Marshall Fraser, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and a Fellow of the Academy. On acceptance of the proposal, Fraser was appointed Director of the project and Chairman of an advisory committee. From the start, LGPN involved international collaboration, scholars from many countries being invited to contribute material and advice; but the Editors and central staff have always worked in Oxford. In October 1996, the project became part of Oxford University, under the aegis of the Faculty of Literae Humaniores, now the Faculty of Classics. The project is ongoing and receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the British Academy, and the Academy of Athens.
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