The National Archaeological Institute with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (NAIM-BAS) is the main scientific research center for Archaeology in Bulgaria. Its main activities are related to comprehensive research on the material and spiritual culture of the tribes and peoples that inhabited the present-day Bulgarian lands from remote prehistory (1 600 000 BC) until the 18th century AD. The institution is a national center and coordinator of all field research in the State and exercises scholarly and methodological control over it.
MedAfriCarbon radiocarbon database and web app are outcomes of the MedAfrica Project —Archaeological deep history and dynamics of Mediterranean Africa, ca. 9600-700 BC. The dataset presented here includes a collection of 1584 calibrated archaeological 14C dates from 1587 samples collected from 368 sites located in Mediterranean Africa (plus some additional dates whose published information is incomplete). The majority of the dates are linked to cultural and environmental variables, notably the presence/absence of different domestic/wild species and specific material culture.
The InscriptiFact Digital Image Library is designed to allow access via the Internet to high-resolution images of ancient inscriptions and artifacts, primarily from the Near Eastern and Mediterranean Worlds. The target inscriptions are some of the earliest written records in the world from an array of international museums and libraries and field projects where inscriptions still remain in situ. Included are, for example, Dead Sea Scrolls; cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia and Canaan; papyri from Egypt; inscriptions on stone from Jordan, Lebanon and Cyprus; Hebrew, Aramaic, Ammonite and Edomite inscriptions on a variety of hard media (e.g., clay sherds, copper, semi-precious stones, jar handles); and Egyptian scarabs. These ancient texts represent religious and historical documents that serve as a foundation and historical point of reference for Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the cultures out of which they emerged.
The Geography of Pliny the Elder compiles and maps the geographic data in Pliny's Natural History. The database, available here, includes some 6,500 unique entries, and this application maps all those entries that are locatable. Users can click on a feature or use the search function to find citations in Pliny and a link to a feature's associated Pleiades entry, where further data, much of it beyond the scope of Pliny, can be found.
The map is displayed using ESRI's free online viewer. The geography (terrain, coastlines, and river courses) are derived from tiles compiled by the Ancient World Mapping Center and currently hosted at the University of Iowa. These tiles represent scholarly consensus regarding the shape of the ancient world. Location data (i.e. geographic coordinates) are derived from Pleiades. The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University hosts an updated copy of the database along with other materials associated with Brian Turner and Richard Talbert's translation of Pliny's geographic books.
The application was developed by Grace Bell, Gabe Moss, Brian Turner, Richard J. A. Talbert, and the staff of the Ancient World Mapping Center. Special thanks to Tom Elliott, Henry Gruber, Ryan Horne, Phil McDaniel, and Gracie Riehm.
