Inscribing Authority is a project led by Dr. Viola Allegranzi at the Institute of Iranian Studies (OeAW) in collaboration with ACDH (OeAW). The goal of the collaboration is to establish a database of architectural inscriptions dating from the 10th–13th centuries, recorded in an area encompassing present-day Afghanistan and the Central Asian republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan).

Varying in materials and writing styles, these epigraphic sources present historical, religious, and poetic texts composed in Arabic or Persian. Many of them remain unstudied. Others have been studied in isolation, without proper consideration of their architectural and socio-historical environment. The project aims to reappraise the dual nature of inscriptions as texts and artifacts, to define their context of production and reception, and to draw connections with manuscripts, coins, and material culture. Such an investigation will shed light on the textual and visual communication strategies that shaped Islamic rule, enabling temporal and religious authorities to appropriate space and gain recognition from local communities.

The data collected through fieldwork and archival research will be compiled using APIS (Austrian Prosopographical Information System), a software solution developed at ACDH. This approach minimizes maintenance effort and maximizes compatibility with other databases at ACDH. The data—including texts and descriptions of the inscriptions, photographs, graphic reconstructions, and available contextual information—will be systematized to facilitate comparative analysis by mapping inscriptions and establishing connections with monuments and historical figures (patrons, craftsmen, authors). Upon project completion, it will be made available under open licenses.

ACDH is responsible for the data modeling and the adaptation of an APIS instance to the requirements of the project and handles the archiving and publishing of the data in the ARCHE repository. Saranya Balasubramanian is responsible for the technical implementation of the project.