A Tale of Twelve Thousand Cards

This article discusses the cognitive influence of cataloging tools in the stamp seals research project carried out between 1981–2013 at the Department of Biblical Studies of the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. As visual knowledge tools, the roughly twelve thousand index cards used by the Fribourg school helped to analyze, translate, and deconstruct visual artifacts into historical/archaeological data in the form of textual descriptions. In terms of media theory, the process entailed the translation of structural (nonlinear to linear), cognitive (synthetic to consecutive), and syntactical (dense to nondense) features. The semiotic analysis of the cards seen against the group’s socio-academic context shows that the cards were not only central methodologically but supported the group’s conceptual and methodological transition with direct outcomes in their historiography. The case study thus addresses an important issue in and for digital humanities, namely the conceptual role of knowledge tools in scholarship interpreting the past.