A Bibliography on the Application of GIS in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) applications to archaeological projects of different scales, chronological contexts and cultural milieux has accrued by now a long history and bibliography. Hopefully the phases of experimentation and almost blind testing are over, even if GIS applications are still sometimes being labeled as “new technologies”

The archaeological Atlas of Coptic Literature. A question of method

PAThs project is aimed at creating an online archaeological atlas of Coptic literature by providing for the very first time a detailed catalogue of ancient books and their archaeological and cultural context, following a multidisciplinary approach and cutting edge methodologie

Un archivio digitale multidisciplinare per la gestione e la conservazione di un patrimonio culturale a rischio: il progetto Ghazni (Afghanistan)

The Italian Archaeological Mission at Ghazni, Afghanistan (1957-1979) brought to light significant information from the Buddhist (2nd-9th/10th cent.) to the Islamic period (10th-19th cent.). The dramatic events of the last 50 years in Afghanistan and the recent Italian economic difficulties have caused serious harm to this unique archaeological record. This gave rise to an operation of rescue and safeguarding led by the University of Naples “L’Orientale” and financed by the Gerda Henkel Foundation, with the aim of recovering the knowledge acquired from the excavations at Ghazni and the subsequent research. A collaborative web-based database, able to manage all the information on the most important findings, is the core of this project. The web database is based on BraDypUS, an archiving platform released under an Open Source license. The scientific database has been paired up with a web portal, built using an innovative and open sourced CMS, responsible for the dissemination of this knowledge to a non-specialist public.The Italian Archaeological Mission at Ghazni, Afghanistan (1957-1979) brought to light significant information from the Buddhist (2nd-9th/10th cent.) to the Islamic period (10th-19th cent.). The dramatic events of the last 50 years in Afghanistan and the recent Italian economic difficulties have caused serious harm to this unique archaeological record. This gave rise to an operation of rescue and safeguarding led by the University of Naples “L’Orientale” and financed by the Gerda Henkel Foundation, with the aim of recovering the knowledge acquired from the excavations at Ghazni and the subsequent research. A collaborative web-based database, able to manage all the information on the most important findings, is the core of this project. The web database is based on BraDypUS, an archiving platform released under an Open Source license. The scienti c database has been paired up with a web portal, built using an innovative and open sourced CMS, responsible for the dissemination of this knowledge to a non-specialist public

Linking Coptic Literary Manuscripts to the Archaeological Context by Means of Digital Humanities: The Case of ‘PAThs’ project

Philological and literary studies on Coptic language and literature have faced a growing interest in recent years. As well, a more careful and sensitive reconsideration of archives and newly collected archaeological data allow today a more detailed reconstruction of the Egyptian Late Antique and Medieval landscape. The ultimate goal of PAThs project is to build new bridges between these two disciplines by creating an online atlas able to represent Coptic literature in its archaeological context, testing methodological frameworks and building IT tools based on network technologies. We believe that information technology, widely used since long time by both disciplines, can provide a common ground for experimentation and fruitful collaboration: PAThs information system discussed in this paper has proven to be an important test bench for the development of new methodologies and the improvement of the studies

Archaeological and ethnographic survey in the Paikuli Area (Iraqi Kurdistan)

The Italian Archaeological Mission in Iraqi Kurdistan (MAIKI) of the Sapienza University of Rome aims to study the archaeological, historical, linguistic and cultural development of the Kurdish region through a wide historical period. MAIKI started by focusing on the archaeological and philological analysis of the Sasanian site of Paikuli. In recent years, however, investigation has been expanded to include an accurate survey of the area between the Dyala and Basara rivers, around the main road that connects the city of Chamchamal to Darbandikhan, in order to implement a complete and updated archaeological map of the entire territory. The continuing work includes a preparatory study of the few bibliographical records available and an overall analysis of the accessible, current and historical satellite imagery in order to obtain a reliable context for the results of archaeological field surveys. During the field campaigns, which are currently suspended because of the political instability and war in the region, archaeological material was collected in all the visited sites and a detailed morphological and archaeometric study was set up. A complete map of the currently inhabited villages of the area has been compiled because up-to-date base cartography of the area did not exist; this new map has proved to be useful not only for locating archaeological records but also for the activities of the ethnological research that joined the Mission in 2013. The area suffered very much during Saddam Hussein’s Al-Anfal campaign when all of the people were forced to leave. The ethnological study will help to reveal the impact that these recent traumatic events have had on the preservation of the cultural heritage whilst supplying rich documentation for further investigation, including on relationship between man and territory, local economy, migration policies and religious practice

Upper Agri Valley (Basilicata) between Geomorphology and Ancient Settlements

In this paper we present the geoarchaeological and landscape project on the Upper Agri Valley (Basilicata). Between 2012 and 2015 we coordinated multidisciplinary research with the purpose of reconstructing the history and evolution of the territory, analysing the relationships between man and landscape from the Prehistory to the Middle Age. The studied area, an inland mountain valley situated in the ancient Lucania, is very important, because it is a fundamental route between the two coasts of Magna Graecia and because during the Roman period this valley was the territory in which Grumentum was born, one of the most important towns of Roman Southern Italy. Thanks to the dialogue between different competences, this project aims at understanding the settlements dynamics and the mutual influences between man and environment: indeed, we conducted geophysics and geoarchaeological investigations, archaeological surveys, cartographic and aerial photos studies, written sources analysis: in this way, different data are used to understand the landscape from a global point of view

cmcl2unicode

A vanilla javascript, simple to use, bidirectional converter from Tito Orlandi's CMCL encoding system (http://cmcl.it/) to strict standard Unicode and the other way round. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1495599 Code: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1495599 Demo: https://paths-erc.eu/cmcl2unicode

Archeologia e tecnologie di rete. Metodi, strumenti e risorse digitali

Archeologia e tecnologie di rete. Metodi, strumenti e risorse digitali è un volume che fa il punto sulle applicazioni delle tecnologie di rete alla metodologia delle ricerca archeologica. L’archeologia è sempre stata una disciplina estremamente curiosa nei confronti delle innovazioni tecnologiche, e ha sperimentato precocemente ciò che le scienze informatiche hanno messo di volta in volta a disposizione. La rapida e capillare diffusione delle tecnologie di rete, e soprattutto la nascita del World Wide Web alla fine degli anni Ottanta del secolo scorso, non potevano dunque non avere un importante impatto sui vari aspetti della ricerca archeo­­logica. La pubblicazione dei dati, la possibilità di collaborare in tempo reale attraverso sistemi informativi condivisi e l’opportunità di ricerca offerta dal Web semantico e dai dati aperti e collegati (LOD) hanno aperto nuove frontiere, ma hanno anche riportato in luce vecchi e nuovi problemi. Anche grazie a un’appendice che passa in rassegna diversi progetti e risorse che mettono al centro del proprio approccio proprio le tecnologie di rete, questo volume offre una panoramica aggiornata dello stato attuale della ricerca e mette in luce le criticità che verosimilmente ci si troverà ad affrontare nel prossimo futuro

SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission)

Una guida sulle risorse disponibili offerte dallo Shuttle Radar Topography Mission della Nas

Fortifications in Chaonia, Epirus. Some remarks on function and masonry styles

This paper is focused on providing a general overview of the Hellenistic fortified sites of ancient Chaonia, Epirus. It provides both an overview of the building techniques and formal aesthetics and a more general consideration of their role and function in the context of the historical landscape, which is conditioned to a considerable extent by their monumentality. While the lack of archaeological field-research is a strong bias for the definition of their chronology and function, some considerations can nonetheless be put forward, with the awareness that further research will hopefully reshape the overall picture