Digital documentation of inscriptions in Saint Sofia Cathedral in Kyiv

Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine, is a world heritage according to UNESCO´s criteria, but the monument is also a source of knowledge per se. Carved into the cathedral´s stone walls and building elements are more than 7,000 inscriptions. There are memorial inscriptions, names, and dates, but also reflections, worship, and private messages.

The inscriptions span over a thousand years and follow different language and writing systems.

The oldest known are in Cyrillic, Greek, Armenian and Polish, but far from all have been identified, documented and interpreted.

The inscriptions in Sofia Cathedral constitute a source of knowledge about the cultural history of man, about language and writing, migration, trade, cultural exchange and cultural diversity in Europe. It is a primary source for various disciplines and fields of research. It is also a source material that, with Russia´s warfare against Ukraine, is under acute threat.

The project aims to document all the inscriptions through laser scanning and photogrammetry, and a selection of the inscriptions with structured light (WLS) and digital documentation in trailing light (RTI).

The digital material will be made available on a database by the University of Gothenburg´s Research Infrastructure in Digital Humanities (GRIDH) and archived in full resolution at the Swedish National Data Service (SND).