A Digital Corpus of Early Christian Churches and Monasteries in the Holy Land: Objectives and Structure

Abstract

In the course of a seven-year-long project (2014–2021), all published architectural, archaeological, geographical, textual, and epigraphical data pertaining to early Christian churches (n=715) and monasteries (n=306) were collated in a comprehensive digital database. The objectives of the project and the structure of the database are described in detail, including an appendix outlining the templates of each section of the digital corpus (Appendix A). A designated section of the corpus is devoted to preconceived queries, which permit the generation of specific reports pertaining to geographical distribution, architectural components and members, index of terms mentioned in the inscriptions, and more. A Google search function covering the entire database is also available. At present, the database is undergoing the final stages of proofreading. When completed, it will be fully open to the public via the internet.