After almost 200 years of history and a trajectory which crossed different phases of the history of archaeological thought (cultural historic; processual, post-processual) and so many phases of technological development of the tools available to scholars, Egyptology has generated a huge amount of raw data recorded in archives, which remains largely inaccessible and sometimes barely known.
It is now time to face the challenge of a more complete exploitation of the archives not only as it was overwhelmingly done in the past years for reconstructing the history of discipline, but also as true research tools, as they contain a huge amount of information on all the different periods and aspects of the Egyptian history and culture.
“Archaeology of Memory. A Relational Database of the Egyptological archives as research tool” aims at creating a pivotal resource for Egyptological research, building a relational database of the main Egyptological archives – ancient and modern – to be used as a basis for the advancement of the discipline in different fields: archaeology, epigraphy, philology, art, history of collections, history of photography, etc.
Such a versatile tool, progressively expandable, will be progressively made available online and completely open access. It will provide the Egyptological and scholarly community, as well a larger public, with the possibility to directly consult photographic, graphic and textual materials that are often determinant for the reconstruction of historical, culturaland religious phenomena, foundations of specific settlements and regional cultural trends.
The digital archive will be appropriately indexed and each record will be associated to metadata, following to the more advanced and shared available standards.
In the first phase –the three-year period of the project– “ArchaeoMemory” will consist of the construction of the digital platform and on the study of the specific archives that have been selected as the object of the research carried out by the three Research Units -in particular those kept in Milan which are among the largest in the world, those in Naples, and those selected by the Unit of Rome, crossed with other significant collections in Europe, Egypt and USA.
But on the long term the project aims at putting at disposal of the scientific community a versatile and sustainable repository tool and at creating an network of collaborations in order to progressively increase the number of the archives stored in the database.
It is now time to face the challenge of a more complete exploitation of the archives not only as it was overwhelmingly done in the past years for reconstructing the history of discipline, but also as true research tools, as they contain a huge amount of information on all the different periods and aspects of the Egyptian history and culture.
“Archaeology of Memory. A Relational Database of the Egyptological archives as research tool” aims at creating a pivotal resource for Egyptological research, building a relational database of the main Egyptological archives – ancient and modern – to be used as a basis for the advancement of the discipline in different fields: archaeology, epigraphy, philology, art, history of collections, history of photography, etc.
Such a versatile tool, progressively expandable, will be progressively made available online and completely open access. It will provide the Egyptological and scholarly community, as well a larger public, with the possibility to directly consult photographic, graphic and textual materials that are often determinant for the reconstruction of historical, culturaland religious phenomena, foundations of specific settlements and regional cultural trends.
The digital archive will be appropriately indexed and each record will be associated to metadata, following to the more advanced and shared available standards.
In the first phase –the three-year period of the project– “ArchaeoMemory” will consist of the construction of the digital platform and on the study of the specific archives that have been selected as the object of the research carried out by the three Research Units -in particular those kept in Milan which are among the largest in the world, those in Naples, and those selected by the Unit of Rome, crossed with other significant collections in Europe, Egypt and USA.
But on the long term the project aims at putting at disposal of the scientific community a versatile and sustainable repository tool and at creating an network of collaborations in order to progressively increase the number of the archives stored in the database.