Articles by Letizia Ceccarelli

Recent research work, carried out as part of the international project on 'The History of Archaeological Computing', jointly promoted by the Italian National Research Council and the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, has created the premises by which to publish online the database of the Bibliography of Archaeological Computing. The database was regularly implemented during the first ten years of publication of the international scholarly journal 'Archeologia e Calcolatori' (1990-1999), and covers a period ranging from 1989 to 2000. The dataset was revised and made available online in the 'Virtual Museum of Archaeological Computing', featuring more than 2,700 titles. Data structuring and updating led us to re-appreciate the analysis of the results, published for the first time in the tenth issue of the journal, by also linking the period under investigation with the achievements of the previous decades and anticipating the challenges of the years to come. This article sets out both the research work now being carried out to classify bibliographical information and the results obtained from the statistical analysis of the dataset.

The aim of this paper is to provide an update to the debate concerning the production technology of bucchero pottery, as well as presenting new data on the use of raw material for its manufacture and the temperatures of firing. This interdisciplinary research focused on a period of technological changes in bucchero production during the sixth century BC, by applying a quantitative analytical approach using X-Ray powder Diffraction (XRD), X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), Thermogravimetric Analysis and Differential Thermal Analysis (TG-DTG), and multivariate statistical analyses. A series of samples from northern Etruria (mainly the area of Volsinii) were compared with products from Veii, Ardea, Segni and Pompeii. XRF and XRD analyses provided quantitative results, statistically analysed, concerning the use of raw material, both calcareous and non-calcareous, and the technology of firing where temperatures reached 950°C or above. TG analysis proved that the black surface of bucchero was due to reduced iron oxides and the presence of carbonaceous material on the surface. However, XRD results demonstrated that firing occurred at a high temperature and the ratio between aluminium and iron in the samples led to the formation of hercynite, an iron-aluminate spinel. The results of the study show that during the sixth century BC the changes in technology to obtain a quality bucchero production were related to a sufficiently long soaking period at a high temperature in a reduced atmosphere, regardless of the presence of calcite in the source material.

This article presents a detailed overview of the principal languages for the representation, interchange and exploitation of data, both textual and graphical. In particular, a detailed discussion is made of the procedure of text encoding. The approach taken in the article emphasises the importance of the World Wide Web for data dissemination and the fundamental issue of standards: HTML, XML and its derivate languages are analysed in detail. Importance has been given to the languages that represent not only the characters that textual sources contain but also the structure, content and appearance of the data. Two types of markup languages are presented: procedural and descriptive. A procedural markup specifies how the document should be presented. Descriptive (or logical) markup languages describe the structure of a document, such as SGML. The article considers the topics of international standards as the TEI Guidelines for Electronic Text Encoding and Interchange for the description of marked-up electronic texts and the RDF metadata recommendation. The first section concludes with a presentation of the innovative aspects of the Semantic Web. The second part focuses on spatial, graphical and multimedia data, and their display and exchange over the Web. The development of the Geography Markup Language (GML) is introduced and discussed, as well as other vector formats derived by XML, such as SVG, to construct structured spatial and non-spatial information for data sharing over the Web. Importance has also been given to the virtual reality languages such as VRML, an ISO standard, and the XML-based X3D. In conclusion the article aims to present a broad view not only of the technical aspects of data encoding but also the analysis of the standards, which are fundamental in the light of data interoperability and exchange

The aim of this paper is to describe the principles on which the Caere GIS has been created and to offer an overview of the spatial analyses conducted and the theoretical principles on which they are based. In order to satisfy the ultimate goal of the project, a solution is described for the dissemination of the results across the Internet through GIS technology. Indeed, at the outset of the project, the decision had been taken to create both a GIS application for internal use and a separate dynamic GIS multimedia application for data diffusion across the Internet. Through the GIS platform, thematic maps of the site have been created, exploiting the ability of topological analysis to explore the mutual relationships between structures. The use of the GIS was not restricted solely to this application, as its full potential was exploited through the use of its analytical engine. Several spatial analysis techniques were used (in particular Viewshed analysis) both for the study of the distribution of finds at site level and for the wider analysis of the surrounding territory of Cerveteri. Finally, the on-line publication of the GIS will offer a chance to create a living document, continually reviewed and updated by the author. It will also constitute the first step towards the standardisation of a metalanguage, that will permit effective multimedia communication and the exchange of different data formats and sources.