CDER: Constantinopolitana

Constantinopolitana: A Database of East Rome (CDER) is an in-development relational database designed to contain a digital record of every object known to have existed in Constantinople during the Byzantine Roman Era (ca. 250-1453). The objects and sites  are spatially and temporally linked together, and together with the people who created, (or associated with) them in an interactive digital map of the remnants of Constantinopolitan life through time. For a description of the project as of May 2024 see this research blog post.

CDER is thus not only an update to the Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium (the definitive reference of East Roman History) but a re-conceptualization of how we share and store information in the twenty-first century. CDER is not simply a Wikipedia spin-off for Constantinople, but an entirely new epistemology for historical knowledge.

In 2025-26 the CDER team is completing the first prototype, which will demonstrate how this platform will work. CDER is built as a relational database linking digital entries on every extant material object or object known from sources to have existed in medieval Constantinople to an assigned place and time on a digital map of the city. A team of scholar co-editors will review submissions, from datasets submitted by museums and collections to individual entries submitted by researchers of all levels. Once reviewed entries and datasets will be interlinked with each other and then published on an open-access web-based platform.

This work is made possible by the web-based historical research environment Nodgoat. To conceptualize potential ways to link the data, the categories places, people, literature, manuscripts, statues, and seals were created. The places category was based on

Find out more in this project see the following links.