Cuneiform Detection in Vectorized Raster Images

Documents written in cuneiform script are one of the largest sources about ancient history. The script is written by imprinting wedges (Latin: cunei) into clay tablets and was used for almost four millennia. This three-dimensional script is typically transcribed by hand with ink on paper. These transcriptions are available in large quantities as raster graphics by online sources like the Cuneiform Database Library Initative (CDLI). Within this article we present an approach to extract Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) in 2D from raster images as we previously did from 3D models. This enlarges our basis of data sets for tasks like word-spotting. In the first step of vectorizing the raster images we extract smooth outlines and a minimal graph representation of sets of wedges, i.e., main components of cuneiform characters. Then we discretize these outlines followed by a Delaunay triangulation to extract skeletons of sets of connected wedges. To separate the sets into single wedges we experimented with different conflict resolution strategies and candidate pruning. A thorough evaluation of our methods and its parameters on real word data shows that the wedges are extracted with a true positive rate of 0.98. At the same time the false positive rate is 0.2, which requires future extension by using statistics about geometric configurations of wedge sets

Cuneiform Character Similarity Using Graph Representations

Motivated by the increased demand for computerized analysis of documents within the Digital Humanities we are developing algorithms for cuneiform tablets, which contain the oldest handwritten script used for more than three millennia. These tablets are typically found in the Middle East and contain a total amount of written words comparable to all documents in Latin or ancient Greek. In previous work we have shown how to extract vector drawings from 3D-models similar to those manually drawn over digital photographs. Both types of drawings share the Scalable Vector Graphic (SVG) format representing the cuneiform characters as splines. These splines are transformed into a graph representation and extend these by triangulation. Based on graph kernel methods we show a similarity metric for cuneiform characters, which have higher degrees of freedom than handwriting with ink on paper. An evaluation of the precision and recall of our proposed approach is shown and compared to well-known methods for processing handwriting. Finally a summary and an outlook are given

La scenografia degli stucchi del Serpotta rivisitata. La materia e la forma

The material that lies beneath the smooth shining surface of the stuccoes of the Serpotta family who used to work in Sicily from 1670 to 1730, has been thoroughly studied in previous papers, disclosing the deep, albeit empirical, knowledge of materials science that guided the artists in creating their masterpieces. In this work, attention is focused on the solid perspective and on the scenographic sculpture by Giacomo Serpotta, who is acknowledged as the leading exponent of the School. The study deals with some particular works of the artist, the “small-scaled plastic theatres”, so-called “teatrini”, which he made for the San Lorenzo Oratory in Palermo. On the basis of archival documents and previous analogical photogrammetric plotting, integrated with digital solutions and computer-based technologies, the study investigates and interprets the geometric-formal genesis of the examined works of art. Knowledge of the material composition of the stuccoes, along with the ability to accurately reproduce their shapes, give interesting possibilities to provide a complete reading of the works of art damaged by deterioration or theft.La materia che si nasconde sotto le levigate e lucenti superfici degli stucchi della famiglia dei Serpotta, che operò in Sicilia tra il 1670 e il 1730, è stata ampiamente studiata in precedenti lavori, rivelando la profonda, se pur empirica, conoscenza della Scienza dei Materiali che guidava gli artisti nella realizzazione dei loro capolavori. In questo studio l’attenzione viene posta sulla prospettiva solida e sulla scultura scenografica dello scultore palermitano Giacomo Serpotta, riconosciuto come il principale esponente della Scuola. L’indagine si concentra su particolari opere dell’artista, i cosiddetti “teatrini plastici”, da lui eseguiti per l’Oratorio di San Lorenzo nel centro antico di Palermo. Sulla base di documenti di archivio e rilevamenti stereo fotogrammetrici analogici pregressi, integrati con tecniche di acquisizione dati di ultima generazione, lo studio presenta elaborazioni digitali che hanno permesso ricostruzioni virtuali a video di elementi scultorei non più esistenti. La conoscenza dei materiali che compongono le opere in stucco, insieme alla capacità di riprodurre con precisione le forme, offre interessanti possibilità di fornire una lettura completa delle opere d’arte danneggiate dal deterioramento o dal furto

Restoration of Fragmentary Babylonian Texts Using Recurrent Neural Networks

The main source of information regarding ancient Mesopotamian history and culture are clay cuneiform tablets. Despite being an invaluable resource, many tablets are fragmented leading to missing information. Currently these missing parts are manually completed by experts. In this work we investigate the possibility of assisting scholars and even automatically completing the breaks in ancient Akkadian texts from Achaemenid period Babylonia by modelling the language using recurrent neural networks

TOWARDS A DIGITAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL ARCHIVE: THE CASE STUDY OF THE ARTEFACTS OF THE AREA OF FORI IMPERIALI

Abstract. The following research aims to exploit the low-cost technologies, for the survey and mapping of historical archaeology in the Roman context. The main purposes of the research is to implement a large-scale survey campaign to understand the geometry and the materiality of the artefacts examined. Three-dimensional survey from photography, allows an immediate mapping of the materiality, of the degradation and of the architectural elements characteristic of the architecture in question. From the model it is possible to obtain an image that is faithful to the reality that can be the basis for developments in many disciplines such as, for example, in the restoration project, for the material analysis and the mapping of the degradation. The applications for this type of mapping are numerous, one of those proposed in this research concerns the virtual musealisation of historical artifacts. More and more in recent years, museums are exploiting the capabilities of three-dimensional modeling software of architectural elements to interactively convey architectural elements. A methodology of work that in recent archaeological excavations is not based solely on the didactic divulgation of the history of a place, but during the excavation phase on the mapping and cataloging of uncovered finds.</p

Building information modelling and digital fabrication for the valorization of archival heritage

Archives of the 20th century are today the focus of many scholars in the disciplines of conservation, valorization and communication. The enhancement of archival heritage could benefit from the methodologies, techniques and tools offered by the current digital revolution. This is the case of the work shown in this proposal. A parametric modelling experience was developed for the project of "Due case a Capri" by architect Aldo Morbelli (1942) starting from archival documentation and from a previous graphic, manual and critical reading of the project. The aim of this research is to build a methodology able to reproduce 3D objects through building information modelling technology, integrating geometry with semantic information up to the realization of a scale models, through the application of different prototyping techniques.</p

Authenticity and cultural heritage in the age of 3D digital reproductions

This volume represents the first attempt to collate an organic collection of contributions on authenticity and the digital realm in heritage and archaeology. It analyses the concept of authenticity from different perspectives and with different multidisciplinary contributions, together with theoretical debate. The collection of papers explores the concept of authenticity in a comprehensive way, engaging with theories relating to the commodification of ancient material culture, heritage-making processes, scholarly views and community engagement. These papers also take into account current digital practices for the study of past material culture and how their use affects and redefines interpretation processes in archaeology. This will provide a key reference text for archaeologists, museum and heritage specialists, and other readers interested in authenticity, cultural heritage and 3D reproductions.This book was funded by the EU 7th Framework Programme (7FP), DIGIFACT 625637 Project (http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/187953_ en.html) and ADS3DV 625636 Project (http://cordis.europa.eu/project/ rcn/187952_en.html). The book will be Open Access, thanks to FP7 post-grant Open Access (https://www.openaire.eu/postgrantoapilot)

Cultural Context-Aware Models and IT Applications for the Exploitation of Musical Heritage

Information engineering has always expanded its scope by inspiring innovation in different scientific disciplines. In particular, in the last sixty years, music and engineering have forged a strong connection in the discipline known as “Sound and Music Computing”. Musical heritage is a paradigmatic case that includes several multi-faceted cultural artefacts and traditions. Several issues arise from the analog-digital transfer of cultural objects, concerning their creation, preservation, access, analysis and experiencing. The keystone is the relationship of these digitized cultural objects with their carrier and cultural context. The terms “cultural context” and “cultural context awareness” are delineated, alongside the concepts of contextual information and metadata. Since they maintain the integrity of the object, its meaning and cultural context, their role is critical. This thesis explores three main case studies concerning historical audio recordings and ancient musical instruments, aiming to delineate models to preserve, analyze, access and experience the digital versions of these three prominent examples of musical heritage. The first case study concerns analog magnetic tapes, and, in particular, tape music, a particular experimental music born in the second half of the XX century. This case study has relevant implications from the musicology, philology and archivists’ points of view, since the carrier has a paramount role and the tight connection with its content can easily break during the digitization process or the access phase. With the aim to help musicologists and audio technicians in their work, several tools based on Artificial Intelligence are evaluated in tasks such as the discontinuity detection and equalization recognition. By considering the peculiarities of tape music, the philological problem of stemmatics in digitized audio documents is tackled: an algorithm based on phylogenetic techniques is proposed and assessed, confirming the suitability of these techniques for this task. Then, a methodology for a historically faithful access to digitized tape music recordings is introduced, by considering contextual information and its relationship with the carrier and the replay device. Based on this methodology, an Android app which virtualizes a tape recorder is presented, together with its assessment. Furthermore, two web applications are proposed to faithfully experience digitized 78 rpm discs and magnetic tape recordings, respectively. Finally, a prototype of web application for musicological analysis is presented. This aims to concentrate relevant part of the knowledge acquired in this work into a single interface. The second case study is a corpus of Arab-Andalusian music, suitable for computational research, which opens new opportunities to musicological studies by applying data-driven analysis. The description of the corpus is based on the five criteria formalized in the CompMusic project of the University Pompeu Fabra of Barcelona: purpose, coverage, completeness, quality and re-usability. Four Jupyter notebooks were developed with the aim to provide a useful tool for computational musicologists for analyzing and using data and metadata of such corpus. The third case study concerns an exceptional historical musical instrument: an ancient Pan flute exhibited at the Museum of Archaeological Sciences and Art of the University of Padova. The final objective was the creation of a multimedia installation to valorize this precious artifact and to allow visitors to interact with the archaeological find and to learn its history. The case study provided the opportunity to study a methodology suitable for the valorization of this ancient musical instrument, but also extendible to other artifacts or museum collections. Both the methodology and the resulting multimedia installation are presented, followed by the assessment carried out by a multidisciplinary group of experts

Research Methods for the Digital Humanities

In holistic Digital Humanities studies of information infrastructure, we cannot rely solely on the selection of any given techniques from various disciplines. In addition to selecting our research methods pragmatically, for their relative efficacy at answering a part of a research question, we must also attend to the way in which those methods complement or contradict one another. In my study on West African network backbone infrastructure, I use the tools of different humanities, social-sciences, and computer science disciplines depending not only on the type of information that they help glean, but also on how they can build upon one another as I move through the phases of the study. Just as the architecture of information infrastructure includes discrete “layers” of machines, processes, human activity, and concepts, so too does the study of that architecture allow for multiple layers of abstraction and assumption, each a useful part of a unified, interdisciplinary approach

Analysis of Visualisation and Interaction Tools Authors

This document provides an in-depth analysis of visualization and interaction tools employed in the context of Virtual Museum. This analysis is required to identify and design the tools and the different components that will be part of the Common Implementation Framework (CIF). The CIF will be the base of the web-based services and tools to support the development of Virtual Museums with particular attention to online Virtual Museum.The main goal is to provide to the stakeholders and developers an useful platform to support and help them in the development of their projects, despite the nature of the project itself. The design of the Common Implementation Framework (CIF) is based on an analysis of the typical workflow ofthe V-MUST partners and their perceived limitations of current technologies. This document is based also on the results of the V-MUST technical questionnaire (presented in the Deliverable 4.1). Based on these two source of information, we have selected some important tools (mainly visualization tools) and services and we elaborate some first guidelines and ideas for the design and development of the CIF, that shall provide a technological foundation for the V-MUST Platform, together with the V-MUST repository/repositories and the additional services defined in the WP4. Two state of the art reports, one about user interface design and another one about visualization technologies have been also provided in this document