Traditional digital epigraphy has long relied on TEI-EpiDoc XML as the primary standard for data modeling and interchange. In the current technological landscape, digital epigraphy often navigates the apparent oxymoron between the descriptive complexity required for archiving and the high-performance efficiency demanded by responsive web interfaces. This paper introduces BEDA (Binary Epigraphic Data Archive), a Rust ecosystem that addresses this tension through a two-layer architecture: a binary archive format for metadata and digital surrogate management (including zoomable facsimile and RTI), and a dedicated epigraphic DSL for authoring critical editions.
The foundation of the system is the `beda` crate, which implements a high-efficiency recursive format based on CBOR (Concise Binary Object Representation). The choice of Rust and the mapping of the whole TEI P5 schema onto a binary-serialized, dual-stream structure ensure memory safety, efficient I/O, minimal infrastructural dependencies, archival resilience and significantly greater stability when compared to the common, dynamically typed solutions used in Digital Humanities, without sacrificing semantic richness.
IbiScript, a bespoke Domain-Specific Language grounded in the Leiden Conventions and their extended formalizations, serves as the authoring notation for critical text and apparatus. This rich yet intuitive syntax is parsed by ANSELMUS, a deterministic nom-based Rust parser producing a typed AST, and compiled to multiple output targets. A BEDA archive may embed an IbiScript edition or serve purely as a metadata and digital surrogate container, as the two layers are independent but composable. Though originally designed to work on the Middle Persian text of the Paikuli Inscription (late 3rd century CE), IbiScript's architecture supports any writing system through Unicode codepoint passthrough and a named-escape system keyed by ISO script code and glyph aliases, making it applicable across epigraphic traditions.
The ecosystem is not limited to library use, as both BEDA and IbiScript expose UNIX-style CLIs enabling scholars to compile source files and export to interactive HTML editions, EpiDoc XML, Unicode plain text, and PDF via Typst, thus spanning archival interchange and publication-ready output.
A reactive web interface, built with Leptos (`beda_ui`), supports metadata editing through forms rendered in real time from the current BEDA file and OpenSeadragon facsimile viewing, while `beda_ws` provides IMEs and writing system conversion services.
BEDA treats EpiDoc not as a native format but as one export target among several, positioning TEI XML as an interoperability and dissemination layer rather than the primary locus of data authority. Far from replacing TEI, this approach extends its reach into a compiled, type-safe infrastructure which enforces correctness at parse time, while full EpiDoc export ensures compatibility with existing tools and repositories. The Paikuli Digital Edition (PDE) portal serves as the primary design driver and proof of concept, though the ecosystem is implemented and packaged as a general-purpose epigraphic infrastructure applicable beyond any single project or script tradition.