2010_Digital Archaeological Documentation (original) (raw)
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Policy and Practice for Digital Archaeological Archiving in Italy
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his article highlights how the Italian Central Institute for Archaeology (ICA) is developing the National Geoportal for Archaeology (GNA), based on the ARIADNEplus infrastructure and its policy framework. Thanks to the GNA project, it will be possible to search and learn about archaeological documentation managed by Superintendencies and Universities holding a significant amount of archaeological data, much of which is either completely or partially unpublished.
Digital documentation for archaeology. Case studies on etruscan and roman heritage
SCIRES-IT : SCIentific RESearch and Information Technology, 2015
Innovative tools which are constantly being developed make it possible for the researcher to adopt an integrative approach favorable to everyone involved in the whole process of documentation. Close collaboration of architects and archaeologists made it possible to understand the key elements of archaeological heritage based on considerations extracted from historical analysis and to have at disposal a large quantity of information gathered by taking advantage of the potentialities of technologically advances tools. The significance of constructing digital models in the domain of archaeology is already a well-established idea and only reinforces the theoretical bases of survey and representation. The objective is to present the way in which digital technologies allow us to document, preserve, evaluate and popularize cultural heritage by structuring out an “open” system of cognition and therefore always lending itself to implementation.
While the beginnings of academic archeology usually are dated to the 18th century (cf. Schnapp et.al.) and earlier attemps are (dis)regarded as sporadic, non-systematic and methodologically non-academic «antiquarianism», the opposite seems to be true: In 1542, the Siennese humanist Claudio Tolomei drafted an astonishingly advanced program to edit, emendate and translate Vitruvius’s De architectura libri decem and to document all an- cient artifacts related to architecture (urban traces, buildings, ornaments, reliefs, sculptures, paintings, decorations, vases, coins, inscriptions, tools, machines, and aquaeducts). Recent research shows that Tolomei’s program was realized almost completely by the forgotten Accademia de lo Studio de l’architettura, active in Rome between ca. 1535 and 1555 under the leadership of Marcello Cervini and comprising some 170 persons. Their still by far understudied documentation covers tens of thousands of objects and inscriptions. These material sources are—presumably for the first time—recorded as they are, strictly separating between original remains and interpretation, correction or complement. By doing so and following the example of Alciato, and through consequent interdisciplinary workload-sharing in an international network, the academy executed research on a methodological level that was regained not before the late 19th century when many of the documented ancient objects had been damaged, destroyed or disappeared. Therefore, these documentations deserve the attention of modern scholars as most important sources on ancient material culture. The paper will present selected examples of this methodologically advanced kind of systematic documentation of material sources, their common characteristics, the persons behind the project and some of the most important publications that can now be traced back to this long overlooked common origin.