Remote sensing technologies have helped to revolutionize archaeology. LiDAR (light detection and ranging), a remote sensing technology in which lasers are used as topographic scanners that can penetrate foliage, has particularly influenced researchers in the field of settlement or landscape archaeology. LiDAR provides detailed landscape data for broad spatial areas and permits visualization of these landscapes in ways that were never before possible. These data and visualizations have been widely utilized to gain a better understanding of historical landscapes and their past uses by ancient peoples.
Airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) is a technology that offers the ability to create highly detailed digital terrain models (DTMs) that expose low relief topographic features. The availability of these models holds potential to augment archaeological field research by producing visual imagery that can used to identify traces of ancient anthropogenic activity. This capability is particularly useful in hard to access areas and in areas of dense vegetation, where manual surveys are difficult to plan and to execute. Additionally, LiDAR technology is nonintrusive so that initial surveys can be performed without altering or destroying the integrity of the landscape and any features that it may contain. This paper explores the use of LiDAR within the field of archaeology and uses a case study approach to investigate the potential of LiDAR data for identifying earthworks dating back to the pre-Roman period in central England. Additionally, an evaluation of a technique to enhance the imagery in order to facilitate detecting human activity on the landscape is undertaken. Vegetation cover, particularly during leaf-on periods, can interfere with the ability of LiDAR to penetrate to the surface and can therefore impact its accuracy. The effect of vegetation cover on the ability of LiDAR to produce accurate DTMs is evaluated in relationship to its impact on the identification of archaeological features.
This article focuses on the preliminary results of a CNR-ISMA ongoing project for the digital edition of Linear B texts, having the ultimate goal of providing scholars, and all those who are interested in the Mycenaean world, with an updated edition of these documents. LiBER (Linear B Electronic Resources) is a document management system which is able to process a variety of materials, such as the logo-syllabic script preserved by these ancient records and their physical supports, as well as to project all relevant data into a dynamic archaeological map. In particular, LiBER has been designed to manage structured texts and all the information available about their chronology, paleography and spatial distribution. The purpose of this article is to illustrate the general philosophy which lies behind the conception of this kind of enterprise and the solutions adopted for the encoding of this specific logo-syllabic script - by exploring drawbacks and potentials of descriptive markup languages and a database driven approach - and for the representation of data through dynamic maps.
This is the third of a five-volume set that provides a detailed account of current research on public and private buildings and monuments constructed within Rome's Aurelianic walls through the early seventh century AD. Both classical and Christian structures are discussed.
La pianura lughese si caratterizza oggi per un disegno estremamente regolare, comunemente fatto risalire alla persistenza della centuriazione romana. La presenza di diversi metri di depositi alluvionali che sigillano gli antichi livelli di frequentazione umana e le tracce di significative variazioni della rete idrografica suggeriscono però un quadro decisamente meno statico. Di qui l’idea di una rilettura puntuale del territorio, facendo ricorso, oltre alle metodologie tradizionali della Topografia Antica e della Geomorfologia, anche a un’estensiva indagine sul primo sottosuolo attraverso sondaggi meccanici e manuali, in base a canoni stratigrafici di tipo geologico. Ciò ha permesso di acquisire nuovi elementi sull’evoluzione di questa pianura nelle ultime migliaia di anni e, in particolare, di interpretare l’attuale disegno della campagna in chiave diacronica, in rapporto alle diverse fasi del popolamento e alle modifiche dell’assetto idrografico/ambientale.
Archaeological excavations provide us with important clues about the past. Excavated artefacts represent an important connection to civilisations that no longer exist and help us understand some of their customs, traditions and common practices. With the help of academics and practitioners from various disciplines, the results of archaeological excavations can be analysed and a body of knowledge about the corresponding society can be created and shared with members of the general public. Museums have traditionally served the purpose of communicating this knowledge and backing it up with the help of the excavated artefacts. Many museum visitors, however, find it difficult to develop a coherent understanding of the corresponding society only based on the artefacts and annotations shown in museums. Effective modern techniques that have high potential in helping museum visitors with better understanding of the past are 3D reconstruction and virtual reality. 3D reconstruction offers a cost-effective way of recreating historical settlements in a computer-generated virtual environment, while virtual reality helps with immersing people into such environments and reaching a high degree of realism. With the help of these technologies, it becomes possible to relive history, imagine yourself being a part of the reconstructed society and learn about its culture firsthand. The combination of 3D reconstruction and virtual reality represents a very powerful learning tool; however, this tool has been rarely used in a museum setting and its correct use has not been properly investigated. In this paper, we present a study into using virtual reality in itinerant archaeological exhibitions. We discuss the lessons we have learned from developing an interactive virtual reality simulation of the Neolithic settlement of La Draga. These lessons feature our analysis of qualitative and quantitative feedback of museum visitors, as well as what we have learned from analysing their navigation and interaction patterns.
The development of computer applications in archaeology involves a complex trend in order to define, before undertaking any implementation, a conceptual framework of computable functions, archaeological objects and data models. This conceptual framework allows the definition of a global information system, well adapted to the various archaeological problems. After that definition, it is easier to develop a long-term and evolving software architecture, integrating the best packages of the market.
Cette recherche s’attache à comprendre le sens qu’a pu recouvrir un motif ornemental omniprésent dans tous les arts visuels du premier âge moderne : le cartouche. Tout en s’inscrivant dans le prolongement du renouvellement des études sur l’ornement de ces dernières années, la première partie de ce travail développe une approche théorique de la question de l’ornemental au premier âge moderne, enrichie par l’élaboration d’un nouvel outil d’analyse. Ce dernier permet d’appréhender le sens de l’ornemental dans ses multiples dimensions en invitant à prendre en considération ses fonctions symbolique, structurante, esthétique et sociale, tout en envisageant les différents acteurs du phénomène ornemental et en inscrivant ce dernier dans l’univers du goût, des usages et des intentions. Sur la base de cet apport théorique et méthodologique, la deuxième partie de l’étude explore et détaille les modalités de fonctionnement assumées par le cartouche à travers des matériaux, des usages et des discours multiples au sein de la culture visuelle du premier âge moderne qui l’a vu naître et se développer. La troisième partie est quant à elle centrée sur l’examen approfondi des cartouches au sein de l’œuvre du peintre jésuite anversois Daniel Seghers (1590-1661). Elle permet d’éclairer les fonctions et les usages du motif à la lumière d’un contexte particulier ainsi que d’élargir la compréhension de l’ornemental en la réinscrivant dans le champ de l’image religieuse. À la croisée de ces trois approches et de ces trois domaines exploratoires, qui constituent autant de prismes emboîtés et grossissants d’un même phénomène, cette étude développe une approche renouvelée de la question de l’ornemental et, partant, propose une nouvelle lecture de l’œuvre de Daniel Seghers.
" Pour les groupes, comme pour les individus, vivre c'est sans cesse se désagréger et se reconstituer, changer l'état de la forme, mourir et renaître. " Marqués par des rites déterminés, baptême, adoption, couronnement..., les principaux changements s'opèrent par un passage spécial du monde profane au monde sacré. Arnold Van Gennep insiste sur ces seuils à franchir que l'on retrouve dans toute société et qui forment les " cycles cérémoniels d'une vie ". Il étudie l'importance des séquences types où le passage à travers les diverses situations se traduit le plus souvent par un passage matériel, de porte ou de porche par exemple.
The Archéologie du monde grec et systèmes d’information team (CNRS – Paris X – Nanterre) presents a survey of the web resources available for Archaeology in two parts, the first dedicated to developments and use of web products, the second to information retrieval. This article is focused on practices: access to research results transposed from a traditional edition to a web site; hybrid diffusion and original contents specially designed for the Internet; retrieval tools usually used, such as Google, distinguished between “portals” designed and developed by archaeological institutions: these portals allow researchers and students to find selected and qualified information. At the end of the text, we present our web sites: Mélanges électroniques en hommage à René Ginouvès, Bibliographie de l’architecture grecque, «Cahiers des thèmes transversaux», Chronique Internet pour l’archéologie.
Alors que l'attention reste polarisée par la centuriation antique, l'ouvrage démontre que les formes visibles sont surtout médiévales. Les sociétés médiévales réinterprètent la centuriation et initient de nouvelles divisions en bandes
One of the tasks of cognitive archaeology according to C. RENFREW (1994) is «to use the well-established techniques of rational scientific inquiry, and to aim to develop these [...] by explicit theoretical formulations». Such is the purport of the ongoing research program initiated in France in the '70s on the logicist analysis and computational modelling of archaeological constructs (GARDIN 1979). A first assessment was presented to UISPP Commission 4 in 1990; the present paper describes advances of the program after that date in two directions, theoretical and pratical. 1. On the theoretical side, (a) new light has been shed on the position of the logicist analysis of archaeological papers (irrespective of their subject or denomination) in relation to recent work on natural logic or natural reasoning in the sciences of man; (b) further, the modelling function of the proposed 'schematisations' of argument has been brought out in the course of an ongoing debate on the respective part of Models and Narratives in the constitution of knowledge in the social sciences. The constraints to which mathematical models are currently subject are applicable to logico-discursive models as well: the same tests (formal coherence and empirical correspondence) are used to establish the validity of both; (c) lastly, as a logical follow-up of a and b, the case for a 'séparation des genres' has been strengthened, i.e. scientific models on the one hand, whether quantitative (mathematical) or qualitative (logicist), and/or imaginative amplifications of their findings on the other, both genres being however regarded as contributions to knowledge in a broad sense (BRUNER 1986). A large part of our discursive constructs belong to an intermediate or hybrid kind which tends to claim a distinct epistemological status, between or above the two genres. Doubt are raised about the future of this perspective in the long run; they found some unexpected support in Paul Ricoeur
Les fontaines monumentales constituaient des marqueurs essentiels du paysage urbain de l’Antiquité. Dans les villes du Maghreb romain et tardo-antique, elles occupaient une place privilégiée que leur accordaient peu d’autres régions de l’empire. Cet ouvrage prend en considération les provinces romaines d’Afrique, entre Atlantique et Tripolitaine, au cours des six premiers siècles de notre ère. Les analyses et les résultats de cette recherche se fondent sur un catalogue d’édifices et un corpus épigraphique inédits. Soulignant les enjeux passés et présents dans l’étude de l’hydraulique antique, l’enquête retrace l’histoire des explorations archéologiques en Afrique du Nord, pour s’intéresser ensuite aux relations entre terminologie et classifications typologiques modernes et dresser un tableau de l’évolution morphologique des fontaines monumentales antiques. L’analyse technique et architecturale des édifices constitue le cœur de cette étude qui prend également en compte la gestion des aménagements hydrauliques et la perception des fontaines dans le tissu urbain. Il s’agit ici de considérer les fontaines monumentales comme des composantes de la ville et du réseau hydraulique. Cette réflexion envisage ainsi l’ensemble de la circulation et des usages de l’eau et ambitionne plus largement de penser la civilisation urbaine, les aménagements de la ville antique et ses transformations sur la longue duré
The aim of this paper is to explain the historical and technical construction of the Christian sense of the bells’ sound through the analysis of historical and archaeological sources (6th-9th c.). In the first part, the question of the origin of
Cet article veut clarifier le nombre d'effluents dans le delta du Nil à l'époque pharaonique et en préciser la localisation. Par ailleurs, la définition d'une branche du Nil y est interrogée. Il est en effet proposé de considérer que les hydronymes désignant les branches du Nil ne concernent pas une branche au sens strict et moderne du terme, mais peut-être tout le bassin hydrographique dépendant d'un bras majeur. Cette proposition permet de concilier les informations livrées par les sources anciennes et nos connaissances actuelles de la géomorphologie du Delta, tout en expliquant certaines incohérences apparentes de la documentation pharaonique.
Leopoli-Cencelle il quartiere sud-orientale è un libro di Francesca Romana Stasolla pubblicato da Fondazione CISAM nella collana Studi e ric. di archeologia e storia arte: acquista su IBS a 85.50€!
Articles 106 and following of the Italian Legislative Decree 42/2004 raise some critical issues for those who want to reproduce cultural heritage and disseminate these reproductions. In 2014 and 2016, changes were introduced to article 108 of that same Legislative Decree: these, under certain conditions, make it easier to carry out such activities when they are not done for profit. This paper explains in particular the changes recently introduced by the Italian Law 124/2017.
The nucleation of the rural population was a widespread phenomenon during the Middle Ages that interested many areas of Western Europe. However, many of these sites are now deserted with the underlying phenomena causing these abandonments not always easy to reconstruct. Archaeologists have been interested in these medieval settlements since the middle of the 19th century, and remote sensing has played a decisive role in mapping hundreds of them. This also applies to many parts of the Po Valley but not the Romagna plain, where hundreds of medieval sites are known but almost exclusively based on written sources. However, the increasing availability of aerial and satellite images offers a valuable opportunity to bridge this knowledge gap. The systematic study of legacy images allowed the mapping of new defensive elements and reconstruction of the general plan of six deserted medieval fortified settlements in the broader hinterland of Ravenna. PlanetScope 3m resolution images were later exploited to continuously monitor these sites during periods prone to crop marks formation to detect the presence of wide crop/soil marks (e.g. ditches). Six successful field verifications demonstrate that these ‘coarse’ images are sufficient to plan drone surveys that can allow the mapping of additional smaller features.
The world of research is currently undergoing a profound transformation, characterized by the extensive use of digital data available online. To optimize the utilization of these resources, artificial intelligence offers researchers several tools capable of aggregating both structured and unstructured information. The need to train algorithms to enhance the use of artificial intelligence techniques in data classification has led to the creation of structured datasets. However, it is not always possible to fully automate the transfer of data to more modern environments without substantial human intervention, aimed at extracting the implicit knowledge present in digital data. The category of CAD data appears to be particularly challenging in terms of automated management of spatial resources. The use of graphical entities for digital drawings, without semantically identified components, makes automatic conversion into GIS extremely complex. The paper is based on a partial test conducted on a cartographic archive that has been formed over 70 years of field research, aiming to demonstrate the importance of prioritizing legacy spatial data, both digital and non-digital, as archaeological data.
Recent work in the Göksu river valley has brought questions of long-distance communication routes to the forefront of discussion. The valley has been long regarded as a potential conduit from the Anatolian plateau to the Mediterranean, yet no formal testing as to whether it was geographically suited to this use has taken place. The discovery of the site of Çömlek Tepesi in the upper Göksu valley and work at Kilse Tepe south of Mut has given further weight to the idea that the valley served as a communication route at points in time, and has encouraged testing the notion that a route through the valley would be attractive based on geography. Computerised modelling using least-cost pathway analysis (LCPA) was used to test whether the Göksu valley could serve as a communication route, and if so, the approximate location of that route based upon geographical constraints. In this paper, the methods of LCPA are reviewed and an example of its use is presented. Advocated as an exploratory rather than explanatory technique, the application of LCPA in the Göksu valley has strengthened current assumptions about regional and extra-regional interaction and raised new questions that refined the project's research design. /// Göksu Vadisinde yürütülen son çalişmalar, uzun mesafe iletişim yollari ile ilintili sorulari tartişma gündemine getirmiştir. Vadi uzun bir süredir Anadolu platosunu Akdeniz'e baǧlayan potansiyel yol olarak deǧerlendirilmekle birlikte, şimdiye kadar vadinin coǧrafi bakimdan böyle bir kullanim için uygunluǧu resmen sinanmamiştir. Yukari Göksu Vadisindeki Çömlek Tepesi'nin keşfi ve Mut'un güneyindeki Kilise Tepe'de yürütülen çalişmalar, vadinin zaman içinde bazi noktalarda iletişim yolu olarak kullanilmiş olmasi fikrine daha da aǧirlik kazandirmiş, vadiden geçen bir yolun coǧrafi olarak da doǧru bir seçim olduǧunun sinanmasina zemin hazirlamiştir. Göksu Vadisinin iletişim hatti olarak kullanilip kullanilmadiǧini sinamak ve eǧer kullanilmiş ise rota için yaklaşik olarak en uygun coǧrafi konumu saptamak üzere en az maliyetli yol analiz (LCPA) yöntemi kullanilarak bilgisayar modeli hazirlanmiştir. Bu makalede LCPA yöntemleri ele alinmiş ve bir kullanim örneǧi verilmiştir. Göksu Vadisinde uygulanan LCPA yönteminin bulgulari, bir araştirma tekniǧinden ziyade bir araştirma olarak, bölge ve bölge dişi ilişkilerle ilgili halihazirdaki çikarimlari destekler niteliktedir. Bulgular projenin araştirma tasarimini yeniden şekillendiren yeni sorular sorulmasina da neden olmuştur.
This article explores the application of Least-Cost Path Analysis to reconstruct potential transportation routes connecting amphorae production sites on the island of Thasos in northern Aegean. Characterized by wine production as a significant source of wealth during the Classical period, approximately 20 amphorae workshops-identified with surveys- date back to the 4th and 3rd century BC. By utilizing LCP analysis, the study demonstrates the strategic placement of these workshops and reveals their connectivity to the countryside and the port of Thasos. The proximity of the workshops to the main coastal road and maritime routes facilitated the efficient transportation of amphorae to the port. Furthermore, a network of rural pathways played a crucial role in linking the workshops with scattered farmsteads, ensuring a seamless supply chain for ceramic products. This research sheds light on the importance of spatial analysis in retracing ancient communication networks combined with historical and archaeological sources.
A growing number of archaeologists are applying Geographic Information Science (GIS) technologies to their research problems and questions. Advances in GIS and its use across disciplines allows for collaboration and enables archaeologists to ask ever more sophisticated questions and develop increasingly elaborate models on numerous aspects of past human behavior. Least cost analysis (LCA) is one such avenue of inquiry. While least cost studies are not new to the social sciences in general, LCA is relatively new to archaeology; until now, there has been no systematic exploration of its use within the field. his edited volume presents a series of case studies illustrating the intersection of archaeology and LCA modeling at the practical, methodological, and theoretical levels. Designed to be a guidebook for archaeologists interested in using LCA in their own research, it presents a wide cross-section of practical examples for both novices and experts. The contributors to the volume showcase the richness and diversity of LCA's application to archaeological questions, demonstrate that even simple applications can be used to explore sophisticated research questions, and highlight the challenges that come with injecting geospatial technologies into the archaeological research process.
In Cultural Heritage inquiries, a common requirement is to establish time-based trends between archaeological artifacts belonging to different periods of a given culture, enabling among other things to determine chronological inferences with higher accuracy and precision. Among these, pottery vessels are significantly useful, given their relative abundance in most archaeological sites. However, this very abundance makes difficult and complex an accurate representation, since no two of these vessels are identical, and therefore classification criteria must be justified and applied. For this purpose, we propose the use of deep learning architectures to extract automatically learned features without prior knowledge or engineered features. By means of transfer learning, we retrained a Residual Neural Network with a binary image database of Iberian wheel-made pottery vessels’ profiles. These vessels pertain to archaeological sites located in the upper valley of the Guadalquivir River (Spain). The resulting model can provide an accurate feature representation space, which can automatically classify profile images, achieving a mean accuracy of 0.96 with an f-measure of 0.96. This accuracy is remarkably higher than other state-of-the-art machine learning approaches, where several feature extraction techniques were applied together with multiple classifier models. These results provide novel strategies to current research in automatic feature representation and classification of different objects of study within the Archaeology domain.
Webmapping allows us now to network tools originally integrated into GIS desk software. They can be found under free licence, with some of them in open source, and answer to the needs of scientific research as well as to their financial budgets. Research centers, corporations or institutions interested must at first define their expectations in order to elaborate the appropriate GIS to put online. With the use of static maps in HTML, vector images in SVG format, image managing with the Applet Java or the designated map servers, it is possible to create complete and complex maps. An administrator can easily adapt the interface and the tools available to the user’s needs. These solutions are compatible with the format of the files generated by other applications and do not require a meltdown of map files in order to be switched onto a new format. These programs can be associated with others available in open source such as GeoServer, in Java language, and MapServer, programmable in C++. Acting as a transactional interface, the GeoServer system consists in stocking and editing spatial objects into a network. MapServer is an asset for customizing and advancing the broadcasting tools for online dynamic maps. This year we have successfully presented our Master 2 University project in Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne entitled NeoArcheo. It puts into practice the web tools and services mentioned above.
This paper deals with a particular aspect of computer-based data management in archaeology: the recording, publication and diffusion of archaeological information. The author stresses the particular character of archaeology: it is not an experimental science, but rather a learning discipline in which data should be cumulative, as each excavation involves the destruction of some previous information and, in general, each intervention, both of excavation or of conservation, gives new information that must be added to the existing ones. Therefore, the author investigates three fundamental topics with their relevant examples: the recording of excavation data, sites and objects or structures analysed and restored; the publication and diffusion of scientific results aimed at specialists; the diffusion of results towards a widespread public. In all these aspects, computer-based tools constitute a basic element. The author, in fact, maintains that their introduction and improvement will not only modify the archaeological professional experience and the way of operating, but will also affect the methodological and epistemological point of view.
Après une longue éclipse, le compas parfait utilisé par al-Qûhî, al-Sijzî et leurs successeurs pour faire le tracé continu des sections coniques réapparaît chez des mathématiciens de la Renaissance comme le vénitien Francesco Barozzi. La résurgence de cet instrument est liée à son utilité pour résoudre les nouveaux problèmes optico-perspectifs. Après avoir passé en revue les différents instruments permettant le tracé des sections coniques, l'article se focalise sur le compas à coniques et décrit ses usages théoriques et pratiques. Contrairement à la thèse courante d'une invention indépendante, plusieurs éléments suggèrent une filiation directe entre le birkâr al-tâmm de la tradition mathématique arabe et le compas à coniques italien. Nous étudions à la suite l'hypothèse de transmission la plus probable impliquant: 1° Ibn Yûnus et ses disciples de Mossoul, 2° le sultan Malik al- Kâmil de Damas, 3° Maître Théodore et Frédéric II à la cour de Sicile, 4° Andalò di Negro à Naples, 5° Lorenzo della Volpaia, Vinci, Sangallo et Michelangelo à Florence, 6° Ausonio, Contarini, Thiene et Barozzi à Venise.
Con il supporto di inedite e circostanziate ricerche di archivio viene presentata la storia conservativa delle tombe dipinte tarquiniesi a partire dalla prima metà dell'800, epoca a cui risalgono la scoperta di gran parte dei sepolcri ad oggi noti ed i primi provvedimenti di tutela, fino ai tempi odierni. Sono poi illustrate le avanzate metodologie di conservazione e valorizzazione nonché i provvedimenti che hanno consentito alla Soprintendenza di conciliare tutela e fruizione delle tombe dipinte. Vengono infine descritte le attuali metodologie di restauro che fanno ben sperare circa la definitiva salvaguardia di questo irripetibile patrimonio archeologico. In appendice un accurato studio del Laboratorio Scientifico dei Musei Vaticani sulla tecnica di esecuzione sui diversi strati preparatori delle pitture ipogee. Questo libro costituisce un punto fermo per chi dovrà in futuro provvedere al restauro e alla manutenzione delle tombe dipinte e garantire che questo straordinario patrimonio culturale possa essere trasmesso alle generazioni future. La pubblicazione del volume è stata possibile soprattutto grazie all'interesse dimostrato dal Comune di Tarquinia e dalla Fondazione Carivit.
L’ouvrage réunit des contributions émanant de spécialistes de nombreuses disciplines dévolues à l’étude de l’Antiquité: histoire, archéologie, épigraphie, numismatique, papyrologie, historiographie. La variété des thèmes abordés (société, politique, armée, religion, commerce et artisanat, réformes monétaires, archéologie monumentale, funéraire ou privée), permet de dresser un tableau de nos connaissances et de nos lacunes relatives à la période hellénistique (IVe-Ier s. av. J.-C.) si féconde en bouleversements. De la Sicile au Péloponnèse, du Proche-Orient à la Macédoine, des îles de l’Egée à la Béotie, les études se répondent et s’interpellent mutuellement comme un écho au cosmopolitisme de cette civilisation. L’ouvrage reflète ainsi la diversité des intérêts scientifiques de Pierre Ducrey, professeur d’histoire ancienne à l’Université de Lausanne, à qui ce colloque était dédié à l’occasion de son soixantième anniversaire.
Results related to the architectural terracottas obtained during the last investigations in the Ara del Tufo near Tuscania are presented. These results and those obtained in previous researches enable us to formulate a new hypothesis about the
The one-day workshops on ‘The Archaeological Publication in the Digital Environment', organized by Nanterre University in 2021, was the opportunity to discuss the work carried out by the Franco-Egyptian Centre for the Study of the Temples of Karnak in the years 2000. The use of digital photography in an archaeological site has allowed the creation of virtual images that modify our perception of the real world and require a digital publication form. Digital technologies, such as 3D and photogrammetry, generate new scientific imagery. Photomontages and orthomosaic photographs are similar in general appearance to reality but they are completely virtual images. The real object is virtually transformed and, at the same time, the generated virtual object strives to be as close as possible to reality. The digital edition of Paul Barguet’s work on Karnak temple was an example of a paperless approach and an attempt to dematerialize the traditional information media. Nevertheless, virtuality is anchored to the materiality of the computer world to ensure its durability and it is constrained by IT media and software obsolescence. System upgrades and hardware developments may appear the death-knell for these achievements. These images and software are products of a new discipline called ‘virtual archaeology’, ‘digital archaeology’ or ‘cyber-archaeology’, but is that the right terminology? If there is to be a cyber-archaeologist, what should be his function? In the near future, when many machines and software are no longer executable or consigned to the scrapheap, cyber-archaeology will become the science of our digital past and no longer the science of the graphic representation of our past.
Quarante-quatre ans après sa première édition, l'œuvre de Paul Barguet consacrée aux temples de Karnak reste un usuel incontournable. La mise à jour de cet usuel a évidemment été envisagée, mais elle ne pourra être entreprise qu'après la publication de nombreux travaux encore en cours. En attendant la réalisation d'une nouvelle synthèse, l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale et le Centre franco-égyptien d'étude des temples de Karnak ont souhaité la réédition de cet ouvrage. L'édition électronique s'est vite imposée comme une solution innovante pour faire évoluer cet usuel en un véritable outil documentaire. Outre la reproduction photographique du texte original et sa version papier, le lecteur trouvera dans le dévédérom qui accompagne cette réédition une version multimédia de ce même texte donnant accès à la presque intégralité de la documentation photographique et bibliographique de l'ouvrage. La thèse de Paul Barguet présente l'état du temple de Karnak en son temps, celui des années cinquante. La documentation photographique de l'auteur, quasiment inédite, est conservée au CFEETK. La documentation bibliographique, plus connue, est composée de nombreux articles diffusés dans différentes revues. Il nous a donc semblé utile de rassembler toutes les données essentielles à la connaissance du site sur un seul support, qui ne pouvait être que numérique. Ce travail d'édition et de compilation a permis la réalisation d'une œuvre réellement interactive. Ainsi, plus de 1 000 clichés de Paul Barguet ont été ajoutés à l'ouvrage, plus de 200 références bibliographiques ont été numérisées puis intégrées à une bibliothèque virtuelle et trois index complémentaires ont été établis. Les renvois internes, les notes de bas de pages ainsi que le chapitrage sont interactifs et liés aux différentes ressources disponibles sur ce dévédérom. " Le Barguet " désigne, depuis de longues années, le meilleur guide des temples de Karnak. Cette réédition, des plus complètes, donnera à ceux qui travaillent à l'étude de ce site, un nouvel outil adapté aux exigences de la recherche.
The NLP tools for the automatic recognition and annotation of titles of figurative artworks from The Classical World, developed by the MonumenTAL project, have evolved through the digital modeling of linguistic patterns. These have helped to broaden the focus from the titles of specific artworks to the naming of generic iconographic types, and to add old and recent expressions specific to art historians and archaeologists. Thanks to this work based on a diachronic approach, a thesaurus of artwork titles (OEUVRE) gathering reference terms, variants and cacographies has been created and is now linked to the online LIMC-France database (corpus of Ancient artworks). The text corpus (Gold standard), from the 18th to the 21st century, and its annotations can now be exploited for statistical analysis or deep learning experimentation.
“Le Stratifiant” is a simple tool for stratigraphic data processing, which can create stratigraphic diagrams with various functions: inscription in the absolute time, according to the TPQ (terminus post quem) and TAQ (terminus ante quem) available, the processing of dubious relations and the phasing of data. Developed under the software Microsoft Excel, “Le Stratifiant” can communicate with excavation databases.
The authors present the research activity carried out at the Istituto di Archeologia of Bologna University. The projects concern in particular ceramic artefacts, from attic black-figured pottery to coarse ware. The procedures followed for the storage, retrieval and data analysis use DBMS, IRS, CAD and statistical packages. A database system was created in order to examine the diffusion of Athenian pottery during the first half of the VI century and to consider possible “export models”, archaic trade overseas of attic black-figured pottery and the role of fine Athenian vases in their own production context. In the coarse ware research project, statistical procedures and quantitative analyses were carried out in order to create a problem-oriented classification in which the pottery was used as an anthropological indicator. Finally, some computer graphics applications were undertaken with some fragmentary coarse ware vessels, and a comparison made with the traditional graphical representations.
