OpenITI MAKHZAN: An Open Annotated Dataset of Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish, and Urdu Print and Manuscript Data

Jonathan Parkes Allen; John Mullan; Lorenz Nigst; Mathew Barber; Taimoor Shahid-Khan; Masoumeh Seydi; Danlu Chen; Yufei Weng; Nikolai Vogler; Jacob Murel; Osama Eshera; Taylor Berg-Kirkpatrick; David Smith; Sarah Bowen Savant; Matthew Thomas Miller

doi:10.5334/johd.465

OpenITI MAKHZAN: An Open Annotated Dataset of Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish, and Urdu Print and Manuscript Data

Jonathan Parkes Allen
, John Mullan
, Lorenz Nigst
, Mathew Barber
, Taimoor Shahid-Khan
, Masoumeh Seydi
, Danlu Chen
, Yufei Weng
, Nikolai Vogler
, Jacob Murel
, Osama Eshera
, Taylor Berg-Kirkpatrick
, David Smith
, Sarah Bowen Savant
, Matthew Thomas Miller

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The OpenITI MAKHZAN dataset is a large aggregation of Arabic-script ground truth and evaluation data drawn from a wide variety of Persian, Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, and Urdu scribal print and handwritten (manuscript) documents. Comprising nearly 1,500 page images across 208 documents sourced from 30 repositories worldwide, the dataset spans seven languages, around 20 unique and mixed script types, and a chronological range from the 10th to the 20th century. This data set is available, open access, for all on Zenodo. This article explains the different types of data in this large dataset and how this data was compiled and verified and suggests potential use cases for it, such as the training and evaluation of new print and handwritten transcription models.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	69
Journal	Journal of Open Humanities Data
Volume	12
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.5334/johd.465
Publication status	Published - 2026
Externally published	Yes

Keywords

Arabic
HTR
OCR
Ottoman Turkish
Persian
Urdu

Access to Document

10.5334/johd.465

Cite this

Allen, J. P., Mullan, J., Nigst, L., Barber, M., Shahid-Khan, T., Seydi, M., Chen, D., Weng, Y., Vogler, N., Murel, J., Eshera, O., Berg-Kirkpatrick, T., Smith, D., Savant, S. B., & Miller, M. T. (2026). OpenITI MAKHZAN: An Open Annotated Dataset of Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish, and Urdu Print and Manuscript Data. Journal of Open Humanities Data, 12, Article 69. https://doi.org/10.5334/johd.465

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title = "OpenITI MAKHZAN: An Open Annotated Dataset of Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish, and Urdu Print and Manuscript Data",

abstract = "The OpenITI MAKHZAN dataset is a large aggregation of Arabic-script ground truth and evaluation data drawn from a wide variety of Persian, Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, and Urdu scribal print and handwritten (manuscript) documents. Comprising nearly 1,500 page images across 208 documents sourced from 30 repositories worldwide, the dataset spans seven languages, around 20 unique and mixed script types, and a chronological range from the 10th to the 20th century. This data set is available, open access, for all on Zenodo. This article explains the different types of data in this large dataset and how this data was compiled and verified and suggests potential use cases for it, such as the training and evaluation of new print and handwritten transcription models.",

keywords = "Arabic, HTR, OCR, Ottoman Turkish, Persian, Urdu",

author = "Allen, \{Jonathan Parkes\} and John Mullan and Lorenz Nigst and Mathew Barber and Taimoor Shahid-Khan and Masoumeh Seydi and Danlu Chen and Yufei Weng and Nikolai Vogler and Jacob Murel and Osama Eshera and Taylor Berg-Kirkpatrick and David Smith and Savant, \{Sarah Bowen\} and Miller, \{Matthew Thomas\}",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2026 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.",

year = "2026",

doi = "10.5334/johd.465",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "12",

journal = "Journal of Open Humanities Data",

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Allen, JP, Mullan, J, Nigst, L, Barber, M, Shahid-Khan, T, Seydi, M, Chen, D, Weng, Y, Vogler, N, Murel, J, Eshera, O, Berg-Kirkpatrick, T, Smith, D, Savant, SB & Miller, MT 2026, 'OpenITI MAKHZAN: An Open Annotated Dataset of Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish, and Urdu Print and Manuscript Data', Journal of Open Humanities Data, vol. 12, 69. https://doi.org/10.5334/johd.465

TY - JOUR

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T2 - An Open Annotated Dataset of Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish, and Urdu Print and Manuscript Data

AU - Allen, Jonathan Parkes

AU - Mullan, John

AU - Nigst, Lorenz

AU - Barber, Mathew

AU - Shahid-Khan, Taimoor

AU - Seydi, Masoumeh

AU - Chen, Danlu

AU - Weng, Yufei

AU - Vogler, Nikolai

AU - Murel, Jacob

AU - Eshera, Osama

AU - Berg-Kirkpatrick, Taylor

AU - Smith, David

AU - Savant, Sarah Bowen

AU - Miller, Matthew Thomas

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2026 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

PY - 2026

Y1 - 2026

N2 - The OpenITI MAKHZAN dataset is a large aggregation of Arabic-script ground truth and evaluation data drawn from a wide variety of Persian, Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, and Urdu scribal print and handwritten (manuscript) documents. Comprising nearly 1,500 page images across 208 documents sourced from 30 repositories worldwide, the dataset spans seven languages, around 20 unique and mixed script types, and a chronological range from the 10th to the 20th century. This data set is available, open access, for all on Zenodo. This article explains the different types of data in this large dataset and how this data was compiled and verified and suggests potential use cases for it, such as the training and evaluation of new print and handwritten transcription models.

AB - The OpenITI MAKHZAN dataset is a large aggregation of Arabic-script ground truth and evaluation data drawn from a wide variety of Persian, Arabic, Ottoman Turkish, and Urdu scribal print and handwritten (manuscript) documents. Comprising nearly 1,500 page images across 208 documents sourced from 30 repositories worldwide, the dataset spans seven languages, around 20 unique and mixed script types, and a chronological range from the 10th to the 20th century. This data set is available, open access, for all on Zenodo. This article explains the different types of data in this large dataset and how this data was compiled and verified and suggests potential use cases for it, such as the training and evaluation of new print and handwritten transcription models.

KW - Arabic

KW - HTR

KW - OCR

KW - Ottoman Turkish

KW - Persian

KW - Urdu

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DO - 10.5334/johd.465

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AN - SCOPUS:105043220280

SN - 2059-481X

VL - 12

JO - Journal of Open Humanities Data

JF - Journal of Open Humanities Data

M1 - 69

ER -

OpenITI MAKHZAN: An Open Annotated Dataset of Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish, and Urdu Print and Manuscript Data

Abstract

Keywords

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