University of Southampton OCS (beta), CAA 2012

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Connecting Archaeology and Architecture in Europeana: the Iberian digital collections
Ana Martinez, Francisco Gómez Cabeza, Arturo Ruiz Rodríguez, Alberto Sánchez Vizcaino

Last modified: 2011-12-22

Abstract


In recent years cultural heritage has found new communication channels for spreading and disseminating through Internet.  In 2005 is funded a project for building a digital library of European culture, known as Europeana. The main objective of this project is to enable people digital resources of Europe's museums, libraries, archives and audio-visual collections. The aggregation of content in this network is carried out gradually through direct cooperation between institutions and Europeana or through the foundation of projects for this purpose. In this sphere of action is funded by the European Commission the project CARARE (Connecting Archaeology and Architecture in Europeana, ICT Policy Support Programme 2009, c. 250 445). CARARE aims to increase the quantity and quality of digital content in the field of archeology and architecture available in Europeana. It also provides aggregation services for users and enables access to 3D and Virtual Reality content.

CARARE is one of a suite of projects to help further develop of Europeana. It plays an important role in involving Europe's network of organizations responsible for investigating, protecting, informing and promoting unique archaeological monuments, architecturally important buildings, historic town centre’s and industrial monuments of World, European and National heritage importance alongside the existing national, regional and local content providers.

The Andalusian Center of Iberian Archaeology is member of CARARE as content provider. Our contribution focuses on the aggregation of 2D and 3D contents regarding to the archaeological remains of the Iberian culture. Specifically, is planning the implementation of two collections within Europeana. On the one hand, will be accessible online a reference collection of archaeological wheel ceramics recorded in Andalusia. This collection has been developed within the Excellence Projects of the Andalusian government (CATA, HUM-890). At the present it contains 1350 records of ceramic vessel and fragment. On the other hand, will be also available in Europeana an image databank for teaching and dissemination of the Iberian culture. This collection contains approximately 2000 images compiled by the CAAI.

With the addition of both collections will be released the most characteristic and essential elements of the archaeological Iberian heritage, bringing content for Iberian culture to Europeana users.

In this contribution the contents of both collections are defined and the methodology for aggregating digital contents (2D and 3D) will be exposed. Also a reflection about the possibility for having content on-line will be done.