DOI: 10.7910/dvn/c308x3
title: Egyptian Hieroglyphic Layout Analysis

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 &lt;title&gt;Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Datasets&lt;/title&gt;
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 &lt;h2&gt;Datasets for Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Research&lt;/h2&gt;

 &lt;section id="hla-dataset"&gt;
 &lt;h3&gt;Hieroglyphic Layout Analysis (HLA) Dataset&lt;/h3&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Overview:&lt;/strong&gt; The Hieroglyphic Layout Analysis (HLA) Dataset is a unique resource comprising &lt;strong&gt;897 high-resolution images&lt;/strong&gt;, each containing multiple lines of Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and cartouches. This dataset is specifically designed for tasks related to identifying and segmenting the layout of hieroglyphic texts within artifact images.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Data Collection:&lt;/strong&gt; The HLA Dataset was meticulously compiled from diverse sources:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Direct Collection (Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Egypt) :&lt;/strong&gt; During on-site visits, we captured &lt;strong&gt;230 high-resolution images&lt;/strong&gt; of various artifacts, including Pharaonic coffins, statues, and wall inscriptions housed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Online Museum Repositories:&lt;/strong&gt; We leveraged the growing trend of museums providing open access to their collections, gathering over &lt;strong&gt;300 images&lt;/strong&gt; from &lt;strong&gt;The Metropolitan Museum of Art (“The Met”), New York, USA &lt;/strong&gt;. The Met’s extensive collection spans approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural significance, dating from around 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Museo Egizio, Turin, Italy:&lt;/strong&gt; We also collected more than &lt;strong&gt;200 images&lt;/strong&gt; from the &lt;strong&gt;Egyptian Museum in Turin (“Museo Egizio”)&lt;/strong&gt;, which has made over 4,000 of its approximately 40,000 objects accessible online.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Specific Archaeological Sites:&lt;/strong&gt; The dataset includes &lt;strong&gt;18 images&lt;/strong&gt; of the wall inscriptions within the &lt;strong&gt;Unas pyramid in Giza, Egypt&lt;/strong&gt;, known for their dense concentration of hieroglyphic signs.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Additional Online Resources:&lt;/strong&gt; Further images were sourced from the online collections of:
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;The French Institute for Oriental Archaeology (IFAO) in Cairo&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum (REM), USA&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;The British Museum, UK&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, USA&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;The Louvre Museum in Paris&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;The Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection of Berlin, Germany&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;General online searches for relevant artifacts.&lt;/li&gt;
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 &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Annotation Details:&lt;/strong&gt; Following image collection and rigorous selection, every instance within the HLA Dataset underwent manual segmentation and annotation using the CVAT platform . Polygonal segmentation masks were created for two primary classes: &lt;strong&gt;“Line”&lt;/strong&gt; (representing rows of hieroglyphs) and &lt;strong&gt;“Cartouche”&lt;/strong&gt; (oval enclosures containing royal names). Individual images within the dataset can contain a significant number of these objects, with some images featuring up to &lt;strong&gt;152 distinct lines or cartouches&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Key Statistics:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Total Images:&lt;/strong&gt; 897&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Annotation Classes:&lt;/strong&gt; 2 (“Line”, “Cartouche”)&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Annotation Type:&lt;/strong&gt; Polygon Segmentation Masks&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Maximum Objects per Image:&lt;/strong&gt; 152&lt;/li&gt;
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 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Potential Uses:&lt;/strong&gt; This dataset is ideal for training and evaluating models for:&lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Hieroglyphic line detection and segmentation.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Cartouche detection and segmentation.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Layout analysis of hieroglyphic inscriptions on various artifact types.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;/ul&gt;

 &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Json annotation files "in coco format":&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;/p&gt;
 &lt;ul&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Train: 705 images.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Validation: 178 images.&lt;/li&gt;
 &lt;li&gt;Test: 10 images.&lt;/li&gt;
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description: CVAT