This presentation will investigate the possibility of applying the EpiDoc-TEI encoding to paper editions of inscriptions. My aim is not to supply full TEI encoding as used to edit and encode ancient texts, but rather to explore the eventual needs of the EpiDoc Guidelines for the epigraphical encoding of existing paper editions themselves. This could enhance the transmission of the cultural heritage that is represented by lost or (partially or totally) destroyed stones for which all we have is a second hand testimony and the cultural heritage that is represented by fundamental paper editions of certain inscriptions, such as the 1883 edition of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti (RGDA) by the Nobel laureate Theodor Mommsen, an inscription that he called "die Königin der antiken Inschriften".

An epigraphical encoding, based on the dedicated EpiDoc schema for these kinds of edited documentation, will allow perfect interoperability and interchange with an electronic edition, realized from the stone, that already uses the EpiDoc encoding. It also permits one to compare the successive states of damage and erasure of the stone. The Ankara (Turkey) copy of the RGDA, for instance, is now almost entirely illegible. Linking an encoded old text to recent high definition photos of the stone, as has been done for Progetto Ancyra by Paola Botteri (University of Trieste), illustrate instantaneously the degradation of the stone in one century.

This study is based on text encoding (TEI and EpiDoc) on the one hand, and on the other it is based on a relevant epigraphical example: the Res Gestae Divi Augusti. The starting point is a TEI encoding of Mommsen's fundamental edition of this inscription. This edition plays a central role in the history of the RGDA, but is already quite rare in libraries and not yet available on line (even if a few websites claim to provide it). This encoding will be compared to an EpiDoc encoding of the same edition, enabling focus on epigraphical features with tags that are standardised and consequently common to other epigraphical editions encoded with Epidoc. However, sometimes EpiDoc does not offer adequate guidance for the conservation of editorial information that could hardly be kept apart, such as explanations by Mommsen of lacuna or integrations, explanations written in Latin and located in other parts of the book, sometimes far away from his edited text.

We hope to conclude with a few recommendations to enrich the EpiDoc and TEI guidance to facilitate the encoding of a paper edition, with all the advantages of the epigraphical encoding and without a loss of fundamental editorial information that are not accessible on the archaeological artefact any more.