Archeologia e Calcolatori 16 - 2005

The Etruscan demon that guided and protected the deceased in the underworld has given his name to a database related to funerary urns produced in northern Etruria (Chiusi, Volterra, Perugia) during the Hellenistic period and often characterised by figurative decorations. The database, called Charun, is at this time dedicated entirely to monuments from Chiusi and is published on the Internet (http://charun.sns.it/). In this database data on the urns, the tombs in which they were found and the related grave goods, have been inserted. Bibliographic information has been collected and the relationships between the various typologies have been considered for each of the artefacts. From a particular urn it is possible to locate the data related to the tomb in which it was found, or from a particular set of grave goods one can find information concerning the specific objects which it included. The most detailed entries are those based on inscriptions, which are particularly common on objects from Chiusi. The web site includes interactive maps which are useful for locating the sites where the urns were found and for analysing their distribution.

The ever increasing presence of websites dedicated to antique numismatics and in particular to auctions of coins has raised the question of how this kind of material should be handled and the need to create highly specialised websites on a scientific level capable of monitoring, examining and organising the bulk of material circulating on the Internet. As far as Phoenician and Punic coinage is concerned, ISCIMA is in the process of setting up on-line a complete and thorough computerised database which is also part of its advanced studies program related to the early Italic civilisation of the Mediterranean basin. This streamlined database will group together all the websites dealing with Phoenician and Punic coins and provide a scientific bibliography of all the material concerning this subject.

The S.I.R.A.X program was conceived in order to create organised and consultable archives of X-ray radiographs. In 2003 in fact, the Archaeological Superintendency of the Marches Region set up an X-ray camera and inaugurated an important project to catalogue the 3000 X-rays taken by the Archaeological Superintendency of Tuscany between 1970 and 2000. This is one of the most important X-ray archives in existence and the Restoration Laboratory of Ancona conceived the S.I.R.A.X. program in order to reorganise it along with the other X-rays which they had taken themselves. S.I.R.A.X. is organised along two main lines: the management form is for data entry activity and the creation of an identification card for a more detailed individual report; the consultation mode facilitates the information retrieval. The program presents a simple and immediate interface which is easy to use, not only by experts but also by people not usually involved in this kind of activity. In accordance with this plan, S.I.R.A.X. will be made available on the Internet as soon as possible.

The use of third-party data is becoming an increasingly important part of archaeological research but there has been little critical analysis of such data sets, or their use. This paper highlights both the challenges and benefits of third-party data through discussion of the experiences of the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project Viking and Anglo-Saxon Landscape and Economy. It shows that the background organisation and intended audience of third-party data set can greatly affect how the data is collated and presented, and the enhancement of such resources for particular research aims may be labour intensive and time consuming, and should not be underestimated. However, it is argued that the usefulness of third-party data sets outweighs any potential problems which may be encountered, but that there needs to be recognition of these challenges and appropriate training provided for future archaeologists.

Digital technologies developed during the last decades substantially change the processes of accumulation, custody, record and investigation of cultural heritage as well as the processes of spread of information on cultural heritage. Basic features of current situation of digitalization of Lithuanian cultural heritage are: a) willingness of most institutions to digitalize the data they have; b) financial problems of digitalization; c) absence of national strategy; d) low level of inter-institutional collaboration; e) low level of standardization. Taking into account the last three features we can forecast that sooner or later (if the situation does not change) Lithuanian digital information systems of cultural heritage will be confronted with the problem of usage efficiency. Perhaps the most important parameters characterizing cultural heritage are historical space and historical time. But we do not have any wider systems of presentation and classification of historical space and time designed for digitalization of cultural heritage in Lithuania. Object of this article is the models of historical geography and historical chronology applied in the digitalization of cultural heritage. Aim of the article is the presentation and substantiation of the model of a space and time thesaurus (standard) of Lithuanian systems of digitalization of cultural heritage. The basic aims of such a thesaurus are the following: 1) creation of a universal method of presentation of historical space and time in digital environment; 2) consolidation of a general scheme (standard) of periodization and historical geography (to put on end to disputes among the specialists on this subject); 3) standardization of space and time presentation in digital environment; 4) organization of management of digital information of cultural heritage; 5) geographical and chronological classification of the objects of cultural heritage; 6) integration of all historical geographical data in a single system that becomes a form of digital cultural heritage; 7) digitalization of the data of different objects of cultural heritage in single and integral form; 8) analysis and dating of information of the objects of cultural heritage; 9) creation of schemes of cultural development.

Information Technology is at the heart of the Tiber Valley Project, from the integration, storage and analysis of data, through project management to the visualization and dissemination of results. Here, some of the ongoing applications of this technology, both implicit and explicit, have been presented. Detailed results will be published as the project continues, with a synthetic volume currently in preparation (PATTERSON et al. in preparation).

This paper takes into examination two different districts of the vast area investigated by the archaeological survey of the hinterland of the ancient Greek colony of Himera: the coastal area between the northern Imera and Rocella rivers and the hilly watershed zone located between the northern Imera, southern Imera and Platani rivers. The study examines the relationships between geomorphology, post-depositional processes and visibility of the ground and their impact on the interpretation of data collected during the archaeological survey and, consequently, on the historical reconstruction of the population of the territory from Prehistory to the Middle Ages. Three aspects in particular have been taken into consideration: a) the impact of geomorphology on the recognition of archaeological traces; b) the relationship between geomorphology and visibility of archaeological finds; c) the role of the geomorphological and/or of the human factors in the selection of areas to be settled. Our conclusion is that the geomorphological context assumes a major role in the selection of areas of settlement, while the visibility of the ground seems to affect not only the number of archaeological finds, but also their legibility and interpretation.

Between 1999 and 2001, as part of the project Archaeology of Volterra and its territory, excavation took place at a rural site of the Roman period, situated near the old village of Montegemoli (Pomarance, Pisa). For the systematic management of all the mainly paper documentation gathered during the various excavations (US records, records of finds, plans of strata, reliefs and sections, matrix, photographs, IGM cartography), an information system within the scope of GIS technology was planned and set up. The results achieved are presented in this work, with particular reference to the methodology followed. Moreover, attention is drawn to the advantages obtained by using GIS technology, which has enabled complex phenomena and spatial-temporal relations to be represented and analysed at a multiplicity of levels, as well as acting as a support for objective interpretative evaluations.

The ARKIS-NET project is focused on an innovative vision of the conservation of cultural heritage, in which the role of the access to different knowledge levels to dynamically use information is fundamental. ARKIS-NET is an evolution of ARKIS (Architecture Recovery Knowledge Information System), an Information System developed in recent years and dedicated to the management, analysis and representation of heterogeneous data, from the artefact scale to the territorial one, used as support to conservation, safeguard and fruition of cultural heritage. ARKIS-NET provides the foundation for disseminating high-end heterogeneous data, organised and represented in GIS form, and mapping services via the Internet. An user-friendly interface allows remote users to make analyses and query on data, integrating them with local data.

The Department of Medieval Archaeology of the University of Siena has been engaged for several years in the testing of GPS survey application for landscape archaeology. In the first section of this paper we have summarised the GPS application developed for field-walking, aerial, geophysical and topographical surveys. In the second section we have discussed the fact that, since the second half of the 1990s, we have felt a progressive disjunction between work in the laboratory and work in the field. While the availability of advanced technologies has been rapidly growing, activities in the field have continued to make use of instruments and methodologies developed in the 1970s. A mobile GIS system managed through the merging of PDA and GPS technologies represents at the moment the best available solution for restoring the link. The conclusions reached in our experiments using these devices consistently go far beyond the increased fieldwork efficiency and finally make it possible to systematically apply strategies and methodologies developed in the past but rarely used up to now because they were too time consuming.

Laser scanner technology permits a rapid elaboration of digital models of surfaces and complex geometries which would be impossible to survey with traditional topographic instruments. It therefore represents the proper technology for surveying archaeological sites and objects of Cultural Heritage. In this paper the characteristics of different commercial instruments are described and their different resolutions in the acquisition of the coordinates and in measuring reflection. The presentation of some practical examples now gives us the opportunity to describe the operative process of 3D restitution from planning and performing the survey up to the development of specific procedures for the elaboration of data.

A project for digitalization and web diffusion of the journal «Archeologia e Calcolatori» contents has been recently started. While PDF seems to be the most satisfactory data format to deliver the electronic version of documents, international standards developed within the Open Archives paradigm can surely offer fascinating solutions to disseminate metadata describing their content. The most relevant protocol for Open Archives implementation is OAI-PMH. Several software applications to support OAI-PMH have been proposed by different institutions and some obtained a brilliant success. However, in certain situations the deployment of an OAI-PMH conformant repository is still problematic. The reason ranges from lack of technical expertise, cost of implementation and intrinsic complexity of web server administration. For small research institutions and university departments the most part of the existing OAI applications seems in effect not simple to implement. In this paper a simplified approach to OAI implementation for small and medium size archives is discussed. This project is based on an OAI Static Repository file (OAI-SR, i.e. an XML file based on a schema whose guidelines have been recently issued by OAI), Visual Basic, ASP, XML/XSL and Java technologies. It has been applied to the collection of abstracts coming from the articles published in «Archeologia e Calcolatori», but it can easily be adapted to other cultural subjects with small efforts.

The «Journal of Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Archaeology» (acronym JIIA), at the URL http://www.jiia.it/, online since the 10th of October 2003 is a full-text and peer reviewed journal oriented to “alternative” Open Access publishing, formed by experimental personal initiative and on a non-profit basis. The aim of the JIIA e-journal is the dissemination of scientific communications in archaeology, antiquity sciences and archaeological applied sciences: it is therefore interdisciplinary and intercultural. The Journal web site, originally static, has been completely renewed. The repository, created with open-source MyOPIA, MySQL Online Publications Index Administration , allows matching to the OAI-PMH protocol and hence metadata harvesting. The Journal appears as a novelty in a sector which, in our country, is still in its infancy. The article also discusses problems related to on-line editing and open archives.

The ICT revolution in archaeological studies is producing thousands of digital data: interaction can be the key word to make more easy and efficient their access, communication, use, and analysis. It is well known that a lack of standardization is one of the most important limitations that prevent efficient interaction between different data sets. Interoperability and comparability of different archaeological data sets may increase interpretation and analysis. The paper outlines current developments in archaeological data standardization, and looks forward for an easier and more efficient process of integration of different kinds of data. The paper focuses in particular on the possibility of exploiting peer-to-peer and shared technologies to build archaeological data networks in an easy way, disseminating the standardization in a down-to-top way, avoiding technical and practical problems related to the hierarchical imposition of new formats. The paper addresses the possibility to realize and make available on the Internet a free tool to build an archaeological data community, with free access, validation, etc., to share data making the most of free text-based standards: XML, X3D, etc. The overall benefits of the proposed file-sharing solution can be summarized as follows: integration of different data typologies; standardization; interaction and networking; modularity; human readability; cooperative creation of vocabularies, graphical libraries, utilities, tools.

Despite the fact that an increasing number of researchers in the cultural heritage sector is recognising the advantages that could derive from the use of knowledge management methodologies and tools, a lack of awareness of the basic principles of this discipline is still rather evident. Key concepts like “knowledge representation”, metadata, conceptual modeling, syntactic or semantic interoperability, ontologies, can prove difficult to understand (and even more difficult to apply) for researchers with a background in the humanities. This contribution, therefore, aims at clarifying the theoretical reference framework through the concrete analysis of archaeological materials. In fact, while it seems easier to borrow definitions and theoretical concepts or to artificially create even very complex conceptual models (e.g. the CIDOC CRM, which has recently been recognised as an ISO standard), it is a lot harder to implement such principles onto real world objects analysis. According to this assessment, and to the need of going from theoretical to practical aspects, the paper is structured in three parts: the first offers a theoretical base that makes available, even for non-experts, the tools for addressing more operational aspects; the second describes, through practical examples, both the knowledge representation model and the software tool used for analysing a class of materials, the Etruscan urns, as shown in the third part. The final objective is, therefore, to provide a point of reference for facilitating the approach towards KM (Knowledge Management) and help clarifying the key elements of a discipline that is obtaining a growing success but, so far, still showing a high level of entropy.

This report describes the observations made while developing a new methodology for historic surveys used for the re-contextualisation of archaeological finds. This particular methodology avails itself of both traditional historic surveys as well as the representation of knowledge through ontology. The methodology described here was developed in reference to specific cases of re-contextualisation of archaeological artefacts from Pompeii which are now in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples.