General Introduction

With ME‑Scripta, the Museo Egizio in Turin is developing its unique papyrus and ostraca collection into a worldwide leading research and competence centre for the written culture of ancient Egypt. The project builds on the existing Turin Papyrus Online Platform (TPOP), but goes far beyond it: over the coming nine years a new digital infrastructure will be created, in which manuscripts, ostraca, parchment and bookbindings from more than three millennia are linked and made available for research.

The collections of the Museo Egizio comprise more than 1,000 manuscripts and around 30,000 fragments in seven scripts and eight languages – from the Pharaonic period to the Islamic era. ME‑Scripta will gradually make this exceptional written heritage accessible to a global audience: high‑resolution digital images, precise catalogue data and up‑to‑date research results will be brought together on a single platform and continuously expanded. In this way, researchers around the world can work on the same documents at the same time, virtually reunite fragments and discover new connections.

At the same time, ME‑Scripta establishes Turin as an international training and meeting place for the study of Egyptian written culture. Building on the museum’s outstanding collection, it creates a permanent training hub with seminars, summer schools, workshops and conferences, as well as new cooperative projects with universities and research institutions worldwide.

ME‑Scripta combines careful restoration and long‑term preservation of these fragile originals with cutting‑edge digital methods – including AI‑based tools that can recognise scripts, match fragments and virtually reunite dispersed manuscript groups. The long term project sets new standards for the study, preservation and communication of Egypt’s written culture and strengthens both Turin and the Museo Egizio as a vibrant centre of scholarly excellence, international collaboration and cultural innovation.