The Lexicon of Greek Personal Names (LGPN) was established to collect and publish all ancient Greek personal names,
drawing on the full range of written sources from the 8th century B.C. down to the late Roman Empire.
It is with great sadness that LGPN records the death of Sebastian Rahtz on March 15th at the age of 61.
His long connection with the project dates back to 1982 when, as a graduate in Classics, he joined the staff to key in basic data.
Elaine Matthews eloquently recorded his transformation into a programmer and expert on computerized typesetting in the
Preface to Volume I (p. xxi) and the name of Sebastian Rahtz finds a place in the Acknowledgements in all subsequent volumes.
More recently Sebastian worked with Elaine on the conversion of the LGPN databases into a TEI compliant XML database
which underpins the current online database search and is of fundamental importance for LGPN’s long-term preservation and dissemination.
Sebastian had for long advocated the radical change in LGPN’s basic modus operandi which is currently under development
and will see all its work being conducted within the framework of a single XML database.
Sebastian was internationally renowned as a leading light in the world of the digital humanities,
a pioneer in the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), a prominent figure in the typesetting system TeX,
and, until illness forced his retirement, Director of Academic IT at Oxford University’s Computing Service.
LGPN was fortunate to retain his interest and loyalty among so many other duties and claims on his time.
- The project: the origin and purpose of LGPN.
- Publications: details of published volumes including name lists and statistics; forthcoming volumes, associated works.
- LGPN online:
- Online facilities: Name Search over 35,000 published names; indexes and bibliographies of LGPN I-VA; LGPN IIA: addenda, corrigenda, name indexes and statistics from revised LGPN II (version April 2007).
- LGPN Database Search: conversion project using TEI-compliant XML.
- LGPN Website Search
- Ancient Greek names: an introduction, including their formation and development, and our sources for them. We also have a little information about modern Greek names.
- Greek Names in English: routes taken from originally Greek names to the modern English
- LGPN-Ling (Linguistic Analysis of Greek Personal Names) NEW
- Announcements: latest publication, new additions to the site, developments, news and events.
- Conference Announcement: The Lexicon of Greek Personal Names is holding a conference in the Ioannou School, 66 St Giles, Oxford on April 5 and 6, 2016, on ‘Onomastic Change in the Greco-Roman World’. Further details and the provisional programme can be found here.
- Contact details: staff and the Advisory Committee.
**** LGPN is in the initial stages of a major upgrade which will see the migration of the data contained in the seven published volumes from the current Ingres database to a XML database. As part of the upgrade, the potential uses of the online search facility will be enhanced so as to provide in the future enriched information about the individual person and their family relations, the place where they are attested and the nature of the documentation, as well as linguistic analysis of the names themselves and their frequency over time and space. The project would therefore welcome suggestions from users of the existing online searching, concerning improvements to its general layout and organization, as well as additional features and searchable variables that could be made available. Please contact any one of the editors by email with suggestions and ideas.**** |
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Email lgpn@classics.ox.ac.uk
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