Pantelis Charalampakis, National Archaeological Institute with Museum - Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Nikolay Dimitrov, National Archaeological Institute with Museum - Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Metodi Zlatkov, National Archaeological Institute with Museum - Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Georgi Sengalevich, National Archaeological Institute with Museum - Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Zhenya Zhekova, Regional Historical Museum Shumen

Byzantine and medieval Bulgarian seals are of great importance to the study of history and archaeology alike, especially when discovered during systematic and rescue excavations, i.e. with known find-spots. Today, museums and private collections in Bulgaria keep approximately 4.100 Byzantine lead seals, and over 400 medieval Bulgarian seals, mostly catalogued by the late Professor I. Jordanov, in his monumental Corpora. These large numbers are, naturally, difficult to work with, especially through printed publications. Modern technologies can take this material a step forward, so that scholars can take full advantage of its potential for scientific research. A bilingual (English – Bulgarian), open access, electronic database, designed with the current methods applied on SigiDoc and including seals discovered in Bulgaria, would be an invaluable tool to scholars within and outside Bulgaria, providing necessary information for systematic research. The Project Digital Sigillographic Corpus of Bulgaria (DigiSigiCorp) is funded by the National Scientific Programme “Development and Promotion of Bulgarian Studies Abroad” and developed by the National Archaeological Institute with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, in partnership with museums throughout the country. It aims to digitize the seals by using SigiDoc for the textual part and a QuickPix photo-scanner for the creation of high quality images, as well as to develop an interactive georeferenced map with find-spots.