Archeological computing and ISAM projects
Alessandra Caravale · CNR Solar (Scientific Open-access Literature Archive and Repository) (Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche) · 2015
Since the 1980s, the Institute for Ancient Mediterranean Studies (ISMA) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) has had a specific line of research dedicated to archaeological computing.Since the early stages the Institute has developed innovative projects directed both towards the testing of mathematical and statistical techniques for the analysis of specific classes of materials (projects on Etruscan mirrors and Hellenistic funerary urns from Volterra), and the computerized management of excavation data based on a GIS platform (Caere project: http://www.progettocaere.rm.cnr.it/).In recent years, attention has moved towards other research areas, concerning, in particular, open access digital online resources and the historical reconstruction of archaeological computing as an autonomous discipline.Currently there are three major projects, related to the research line dedicated to "Archaeology and Information Society".The first one pivots around the journal «Archeologia e Calcolatori», which with its 25 issues published constitutes a distinguished point of reference, able to report developments, innovations and insights of methods, techniques, projects and institutions involved in this specific field of research.Since 2005 the journal has also been published online and its articles from 1998 onwards are freely available in pdf format, downloadable and printable (http://soi.cnr.it/archcalc/index.htm).The journal is included in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ: http://doaj.org/),the reference collection of electronic journals freely accessible online, created by the University of Lund (Caravale, Piergrossi 2015).During the years, specific attention has been devoted in the pages of the journal to epigraphic research projects, which allow readers to follow the evolution of computer applications from the earliest databases to the use of textual analysis tools.The second project is the website "Virtual museum of archaeological computing", carried out in cooperation with the Centro Linceo Interdisciplinare "Beniamino Segre" of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and some ISMA researchers (http://archaeologicalcomputing.lincei/).Its goal is to show the roots and the development of the discipline, by pointing out the related institutions, studies and main actors at an international level.The website provides also several virtual itineraries in order to reach some important aspects of archaeological computing in an interactive way.Another project concerns the rich bronze collection of Museo Claudio Faina in Orvieto.The website "Sethlans.Bronzi del Museo Faina" (http:// bronzifaina.isma.cnr.it/;Caravale 2015) was set up, as in the case of the previous resource, using the open source Content Management System