Numeral Sigma in Ptolemaic Documentary Papyri

Description: This dataset was collected for a study on the visual aspect of the numeral sigma in Ptolemaic documentary papyri. It contains two files: SigmaNumeralsPtolemaicDocumentary.xq: The XQuery code used to parse a local copy of the Duke Databank of Greek Documentary Papyri (DDbDP), the online repository of editions of Greek documentary papyri encoded in XML TEI EpiDoc, and of the Heidelberger Gesamtverzeichnis der griechischen Papyrusurkunden Ägyptens (HGV), the online repository of metadata for the same editions encoded in XML TEI EpiDoc. SigmaNumeralsPtolemaicDocumentary.csv: The CSV file containing the resulting data after curation. The data was collected from the DDbDP and the HGV on May 27, 2025, with an update on December 1, 2025. The code used to parse the repositories is documented within itself. It produced a CSV where each line corresponded to an encoded numeral in the DDbDP whose numerical value matched the Regular Expression ^\d*2\d{2}$, i.e., whose hundreds digit was 2. Only papyri dated between -400 and -1 (non-strict) were retained. In case a papyrus had more than one date, only the first date was considered. The results of the code were further curated while analyzing the data, cleaning mistakes in the automatically retrieved data. The final CSV therefore does not represent the result of the search, but a cleaned and consolidated list. The curated CSV is a comma-separated file using quotation marks as text-qualifiers. It presents the following columns: Id: the unique identifier for each instance of a numeral. It is created by combining the TM number of the papyrus, the line number where the numeral appears, the value of the number in Arabic numerals, and an alphabetic code to differentiate homonymies. TM: the TM number of the papyrus, automatically retrieved from the DDbDP through the XQuery. ddb-hybrid: the ddb-hybrid identifier of the papyrus, automatically retrieved from the DDbDP through the XQuery. image-url: the link to the only image, automatically retrieved from the HGV through the XQuery. image-plate: the information to locate print images of the papyrus, automatically retrieved from the HGV through the XQuery. when: the exact date on which the papyrus was produced, automatically retrieved from the HGV through the XQuery. In case a papyrus had more than one date, only the first date was considered. notBefore: the terminus post quem on which the papyrus was produced, automatically retrieved from the HGV through the XQuery. In case a papyrus had more than one date, only the first date was considered. notAfter: the terminus ante quem on which the papyrus was produced, automatically retrieved from the HGV through the XQuery. In case a papyrus had more than one date, only the first date was considered. Century: the century to which the papyrus was attributed, calculated as such: either the century of the @when date, or the century of the mean year of the @notBefore and @notAfter dates, or the century of the @notBefore plus ten years, or the century of the @notAfter minus ten years. The possible values are: 'III BCE', 'II BCE', 'I BCE'. place: the place where the papyrus was produced, automatically retrieved from the HGV through the XQuery. nome: the nome where the papyrus was produced, expressed by simplifying and consolidating the list of places from the @place location. The possible values are: 'Alexandria', 'Alexandria (?)', 'Apollonopolites', 'Apollonopolites (?)', 'Arsinoites', 'Arsinoites (?)', 'Delta', 'Herakleopolites', 'Herakleopolites (?)', 'Hermopolites', 'Hermopolites (?)', 'Memphites', 'Memphites (?)', 'Oxyrhynchites', 'Pathyrites', 'Pathyrites (?)', 'Peri Thebas', 'Peri Thebas (?)', 'Upper Egypt', 'Other', 'unknown', 'uncertain'. linenumber: the line number where the numeral appears, automatically retrieved from the DDbDP through the XQuery. Greek: the original spelling of the numeral, automatically retrieved from the DDbDP through the XQuery. value: the value of the numeral expressed in Arabic numerals, automatically retrieved from the DDbDP through the XQuery. spelling: the spelling of the numeral, either 'alphabetic' (the numeral is spelled according to the alphabetic or Ionian system) or 'full-letters' (the numeral is spelled in full). shape: the shape of the numeral; the possible entries are 'lacuna' (the numeral is reconstructed in a lacuna, overriding every other value); 'no-image' (there is no image of the numeral, overriding every other value except for lacuna); 'full-letters' (the numeral is written in full letters); 'Ϲ' (the numeral is written with a lunate sigma); 'Σ' (the numeral is written with an epigraphic sigma); 'unclear' (the numeral is written with a hard-to-read sigma); 'uncertain' (the numeral is written with a sigma that is unclassifiable as either lunate or epigraphic, used sparingly); 'scribal-omission' (the numeral was omitted by the scribe). References: The DDbDP and the HGV are available for download under a CC BY 3.0 license from GitHub (https://github.com/papyri/idp.data). The former was developed at Duke University and the latter at the Institut für Papyrologie of the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; the data is constantly updated by the users of the https://papyri.info website. The digital infrastructure is hosted at the Duke University Libraries. Acknowledgements: I thank Elisa Nury for all her help in preparing the XQuery code – she is the author of the chronological filter within the code. This work was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, through the SNSF Starting Grant num. 211682 (PI: Isabelle Marthot-Santaniello) and the Postdoc.Mobility Fellowship num. 235273.