Special Characters

Notes

It is sometimes necessary to represent a mark in the original text that is not readily handled by conventional type or fonts (e.g., does not correspond to a Unicode code point) but is not really an illustration. Some examples of symbols that might be recorded in this way include: scroll, chi-rho, cross, stop, leaf, star, centurion, denarius, fish. In conventional typographic editions, these 'odd characters' can only be shown "in consuetam formam reducta" with doubled parentheses and a note in the apparatus. The distinction between character rectification and naming of a symbol or glyph is made by using italics. In digital editions, projects are free to define character entities for this purpose, but searching for these items as a class of material dictated the use of an XML element. TEI P4 provides no element for this purpose, and so EpiDoc recommends the extension of TEI for epigraphic work with the use of the <g> element. It has one attribute, type, which is required. The type attribute can have any value the editor deems necessary.

GB (2007-05-11): <g> is a TEI P5 element that replaces <mark>, which was created for EpiDoc to fill a perceived gap in the P4 Guidelines. <mark> is now deprecated, and will be removed from the DTD in six months time.