Unknown Hands is under active development. This roadmap separates the current database snapshot from work that is still being prepared for public release. Dates and priorities may evolve as the project grows.
Current Data Snapshot
The figures below come from the JSON exports currently used by the website and were reviewed in August 2026. They count public records of each entity type; they do not include related records bundled into another export.
| Entity type |
Records |
Current status |
| Scribal Units | 1,924 | Ongoing Data enrichment and quality control |
|---|
| Production Units | 1,263 | Ongoing Data enrichment and quality control |
|---|
| Manuscripts | 1,203 | Established Corrections and additions continue |
|---|
| Monastic Institutions | 3,647 | Ongoing Cataloguing and record linkage |
|---|
| Holding Institutions | 231 | Established Corrections continue |
|---|
| Historical People | 1,625 | Ongoing Biographical enrichment and relationship review |
|---|
| Texts | 1,163 | Ongoing Classification and relationship review |
|---|
Completion percentages have been removed because record presence and scholarly completeness are not equivalent. Future progress reporting will distinguish record creation, metadata enrichment, relationship review, and quality assurance.
Current Development Phase
- Continue validating the database interface and analytical modules before public release.
- Complete methodological documentation for derived statistics, maps, timelines, and networks.
- Continue accessibility, responsive-design, and data-quality review.
- Prepare versioned deposits of data and code in trusted repositories such as Huma-Num and Zenodo.
- Develop teaching resources and pedagogical tools for students and the wider public.
- Organize workshops and panels on digital approaches to female scribes.
Future Developments
- Additional research on Western Europe and integration of manuscripts whose attribution to a female scribe is considered “low probability.”
- Expansion of linguistic and cultural coverage: integration of additional European vernaculars as well as extra-European traditions (Arabic, Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, etc.).
- Development of the international scholarly network to foster collaboration, data sharing, and cross-corpus comparison.
- Integration of new research axes: illuminations and artistic description, stylistic and iconographic analysis, materials and techniques.
- Increased interoperability: implementing APIs or standardized exports (IIIF, TEI, Linked Open Data) to connect Unknown Hands with other international databases.
- Institutional partnerships: establishing agreements with libraries and museums to enrich the database through official deposits or collaborative cataloging.
- Carefully documented quantitative analysis of unidentified scribes, manuscript production, and historical networks.