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AnArchive Fabbrica, Harald Szeemann, Feuilleton Süddeutsche Zeitung (photograph by Siegfried Zielinski).
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There are thousands of forgotten archaeological archives hidden away in repositories all over the world, lost worlds where many scholars have toiled away for years, trying to record every detail and bit of information available about rare and precious archaeological objects in an attempt to bring order and understanding to an almost incomprehensibl...
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... (1) OVERVIEW CONTEXT This archive gathers information from a range of disparate sources to provide a near comprehensive listing of flat, flanged and palstave axeheads from Bronze Age Britain. In particular, it combines two major existing digital datasets on Bronze Age axes: (a) the British Museum's National Bronze Implement Index (BM-NBII, first collected as a card catalogue from 1913 until the 1980s, and then transcribed online by MicroPasts crowdsourcing contributors, see [1]), and (b) the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS, https://finds.org.uk/). The BM-NBII was meant to offer a listing of all known Bronze Age metal objects from various museums and collections across the UK. ...
... On most occasions, these data transformations are made with a view to enhancement, reanalysis or re-interpretation using novel IT tools and methods. Such aspects include studies in the grey literature [8], excavation datasets [9][10][11][12][13], survey and CRM records [14][15][16][17][18][19], archival material [20], retrospective photogrammetry [21,22], and data harvesting and modelling [23,24]. ...
The emergence of the ubiquitous digital ecosystem has provided new momentum for research in archaeology and the cultural heritage domain [...]
... [see: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212054821000126] in the UK, US, Italy and Germany. Though MicroPasts began by allowing a robust scaffolded and contributing type of participation, where individuals are asked to finish relatively mechanical crowdsourcing responsibilities (for example transcription, geo-referencing, photo-masking and tagging, etc.), it later advances to include cooperative and co-creative levels of involvement as well (Bonacchi et al., 2014;Wexler et al., 2015). ...
The research objectives of this paper are the recognition of the fundamental– and frequently ignored – principles of what it entails to be ‘digital’ in cultural background and conclusions on the strategic planning for the growth of digital museums. In this paper current history of cultural heritage are divided into two broad parts – digital technology and digital strategy and transformation. The digital technology aspect reveals that current technological developments have opened a completely new phase of understanding and innovation potentials in the cultural subject. Digital strategy and transformation aspect reveals that technology has constantly played a significant role in forward-looking visions about the museums of the future. The ever-increasing development in technology creates a thriving market for digital museum services and solutions. There is a push for museums that tries to solve the problems of interaction and engagement, thereby creating a conducive environment for a digital heritage economy.
... Under the auspices of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, he founded the National Bronze Age Implements Index and a Megalithic Index. Although the Megalithic Index has fallen into ruin (it was, for a spell, under the care of Egyptologist and Folklorist Margaret Murray), the Bronze Age Implements Index continues to be revised and studied (Wexler et al. 2015). ...
We need maps"! O.G.S. Crawford announced, "maps of everything, in every textbook (whatever its subject) and in every monograph and scientific paper-not mere diagrams inserted into the text and only two or three inches in size, but real, large-scale maps with colours" (1922a: 99). Written in Hol-zminden Prison Camp-where maps were useful to escapees-Crawford's 'Man and His Past' was a manifesto for new approaches to the human past; a mission statement for the modernization of archaeology. And, for Craw-ford and many of his contemporaries, it was mapping that would effect this essential modernization. In this chapter I explore how the activity of mapping became so important to the development of modern archaeology in Britain. I investigate how mapping became suffused with moral values and utopian politics, and how 'moral geographies' (Matless 1992, 1998) became harnessed to the production of a self-consciously modern archaeology over the course of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Mapping, I will show, was not just valued as a tool of data collection and analysis, but also positively valued as a performance in its own right, with the capacity to reform society and revitalize communities. Geography supplied approaches and theoretical predispositions that might allow a reformed and modernized archaeology to be placed in the service of the future. My approach focuses on three figures whose work is central to the history of mapping in a formative period of archaeological map production in Britain-Herbert John Fleure, Harold Peake and O.G.S. Crawford. I have chosen these three individuals because of their profound influence on the developing meanings of mapping between the 1900s and 1920s; because of the way their map-work spans disciplines in the period before modern geography and archaeology acquired an established professional and institutional structure, and; because of the ways their map-work interrelates , allowing me to explore some of the personal networks that made their work meaningful collectively in the early years of the twentieth century. The map-work of these three friends and collaborators is not only of interest to historians. The discursive contexts which made their mapping significant in their own times gave their map-work a formative role in the making of modern archaeology.
... Peake set up national databases that could have verified his prospector theory. Under the auspices of the British Association for the Advancement of Science he founded the National Bronze Age Implements Index and a Megalithic Index (Wexler et al 2015). Field survey and distribution mapping were thus central to Harold Peake's archaeological and utopian projects alike. ...
Histories of archaeology traditionally traced the progress of the modern discipline as the triumph of secular disenchanted science over pre-modern, enchanted, world-views. In this article I complicate and qualify the themes of disenchantment and enchantment in archaeological histories, presenting an analysis of how both contributed to the development of scientific theory and method in the earliest decades of the twentieth century. I examine the interlinked biographies of a group who created a joke religion called “The Cult of Kata”. The self-described “Kataric Circle” included notable archaeologists Harold Peake, O.G.S. Crawford and Richard Lowe Thompson, alongside classicists, musicians, writers and performing artists. The cult highlights the connections between archaeology, theories of performance and the performing arts – in particular theatre, music, folk dance and song. “Wild worship” was linked to the consolidation of collectivities facilitating a wide variety of scientific and artistic projects whose objectives were all connected to dreams of a future utopia. The cult parodied archaeological ideas and methodologies, but also supported and expanded the development of field survey, mapping and the interpretation of archaeological distribution maps. The history of the Cult of Kata shows how taking account of the unorthodox and the interdisciplinary, the humorous and the recreational, is important within generously framed approaches to histories of the archaeological imagination. The work of the Kataric Circle is not best understood as the relentless progress of disenchanted modern science. It suggests a more complicated picture in which dynamics of enchantment and disenchantment stimulate and discipline the imagination simultaneously. I conclude with a reexamination of the politics of an emphasis on playfulness and enchantment.
The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the outcomes of the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Arts and Humanities Research Council funded (AHRC) Creative Economy Engagement Fellowships, a practice-driven research, development programme and knowledge transfer activity. The guiding principles and methods behind these Fellowships were to make use of low cost, replicable 3D scanning of the Museum's collection, whilst working with an educational technology startup and a 3D printing artisan workshop to determine how their technologies could be exploited whilst focusing on user-centred design. This chapter demonstrates how Early Career Researchers (ECRs) can gain valuable career progression and creative industries experience whilst combining digital technologies, audience engagement and research and implement them in a short time frame.KeywordsCreative industries3D printingMuseologyEgyptologyArchaeology
Computer games are recent artifacts that have had, and continue to have, enormous cultural impact. In this interdisciplinary collaboration between computer science and archaeology, we closely examine one such artifact: the 1980 Apple II game Mystery House, the first graphical adventure. We focus on implementation rather than gameplay, treating the game as a digital artifact. What can we learn about the game and its development process through reverse engineering and analysis of the code, data, and game image? Our exploration includes a technical critique of the code, examining the heretofore uncritical legacy of Ken Williams as a programmer. As game development is a human activity, we place it in a theoretical framework from archaeology, to show how a field used to analyze physical artifacts might adapt to shed new light on digital games. Open Access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives: CC BY-NC-ND
This paper draws upon the experience of several years of running a multi-application crowdsourcing platform, as well as a longitudinal evaluation of participant profiles, motivations and behaviour, to argue that heritage crowdsourcing cannot straightforwardly be considered a democratising form of cultural participation. While we agree that crowdsourcing helps expand public engagement with state-funded activities such as Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums, we also note that both in our own experience and in other projects, the involved public cohort is not radically different in socio-demographic make-up to the one that physically visits such institutions, being for example financially better-off with high levels of formal education. In shedding light on issues of participation and cultural citizenship, through a both theoretically and empirically rich discussion, this paper light casts on the current impact of heritage crowdsourcing, in terms of both its strengths and weaknesses. The study will also be useful for cultural heritage policy and practice, museum management and curatorship, to potentially guide the choices and strategies of funders and organisations alike.
