New light on Roman census papyri through semi-automated record linkage |
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Authors: | Saskia Hin Dalia A. Conde Adam Lenart |
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Affiliation: | 1. Family and Population Studies Group (FaPOS), Department of Sociology, KU Leuvensaskia.hin@soc.kuleuven.be;3. Department of Biology, University of Southern Denmark;4. Max-Planck Odense Center on the Biodemography of Aging, University of Southern Denmark;5. Max-Planck Odense Center on the Biodemography of Aging, University of Southern Denmark;6. Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Biodemography, Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark |
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Abstract: | ABSTRACTThe census documents from Roman Egypt form the best documentary source of demographic information for the Roman Empire. Earlier collections (Bagnall and Frier 2006 Bagnall, R. S., and B. W. Frier. 2006. The demography of Roman Egypt. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar]; Bagnall, Frier, and Rutherford 1997 Bagnall, R. S., B. W. Frier, and I. C. Rutherford. 1997. The census register P. Oxy. 984: The reverse of Pindar's Paeans. Papyrologica Bruxellensia, Vol. 29. Brussels: Fondation égyptologique Reine Elisabeth. [Google Scholar]) have shown that some individuals and households appear more than once within this body of evidence. This article demonstrates how semi-automated record linkage provides an efficient and systematic way of producing linkages between early historical documentary sources that are fragmentary. The process yielded more linkages with generally high probability values than previously employed linkage-by-hand methods. As the added examples show, semi-automated record linkage also proved to be a useful method to fill gaps in papyri by transferring information from one record to the other. As such, it provides new opportunities for papyrologists and epigraphers working with fragmented materials pertaining to the ancient Greco-Roman world. |
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Keywords: | census records historical demography microdata papyri record linkage Roman Empire |
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