Exploratory analysis of images engraved on ancient near-eastern seals based on a distance among strings

Abstract

For the structure analysis of images engraved on ancient Near-Eastern seals, a method was developed able of computing the distance among strings of symbols repre-senting each image structure. In strings, couples of parentheses enclose substrings corresponding to subpattern, that are outlined in this way. The procedure examines operations of deletion, insertion, and substitution, necessary to map a string into another. The method uses a set of weights to be attributed to each operation in order to derive a distance based on these weights. The distance matrix was submitted to principal coordinates analysis, followed by a hierarchical classification of seals according to the first three principal axes coordinates. The results of the pilot analysis performed on a sample of a hundred seals are highly promising for further developments.