We have often been asked:

“SNAP” contains the word “Ancient,” which suggests a rather inclusive definition of classical antiquity, but “DRGN” includes “Greco-Roman”, which implies more traditional restriction. Are you interested in prosopographies from outside the strictly Greek and Roman world?

Yes! (Short answer.)

Longer answer is in two parts:

(1) yes, we’re certainly interested in prosopographies and other person-data lists from outside the classical Greco-Roman world. The second half of the acronym, “DRGN,” was unfortunately massaged to suggest the word “snapdragon,” and I now regret the implication that we might be either linguistically, culturally or geographically limited to Greece and Rome;

(2) we expect the protocols and tools developed by SNAP eventually to be of relevance to all places and periods, but we’re defining our initial scope as “the Ancient Mediterranean and geographically or chronologically intersecting cultures.” So we’ll start with Greece and Rome and Egypt, perhaps Persian, Phoenician, Punic, Tifinag, Iberic, Celtic, etc., include dynastic Egypt and the Byzantine world, and slowly spread outward from there.

So if you’re asking that question because you have a prosopography of Ancient India or China, Mediaeval Arabia, a catalogue of Celtic or old Norse personal names, or Sumerian/Babylonian person lists—then yes! We do want to hear from you. There will almost certainly be at least a one-person overlap between any two prosopographies in our collection eventually, and even if they weren’t, a single virtual authority of ancient persons from all world cultures will still be a valuable resource.