The Syrian Heritage Project in the IT infrastructure of the German Archaeological Institute
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2015-05-29

Authors: Philipp Gerth, Sebastian Cuy
Abstract: The ongoing armed conflict in Syria has led not only to a humanitarian disaster, but also threatened the rich cultural heritage of Syria. As an active involvement is not possible at the moment, the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) in cooperation with the Museum for Islamic Art Berlin and the German Foreign Office have started the Syrian Heritage Archive Project in November 2013. Its aim is to create an extensive systematic documentation system from the various available source that can be used to support preservation and reconstruction and also helps to prevent illegal trade. One major challenge posed in that project was integrating the various types of research data generated by archaeological, art historical and architectural history projects in order to create a comprehensive national registry of archaeological sites. In the past years the DAI was able to implement applications and web services for various domains and types of data relevant for archaeological studies. Not only did using these existing Systems in the Syrian Heritage Project ensure sustainability. The open application interfaces of the applications allowed us to aggregate the heterogeneous research data like excavation data, texts, archives, cadastral plans, historical maps, etc. and to present them in a unified user interface. Especially the DAI’s resources for managing geo data were of particular value for this enterprise. On the on hand the geoserver “iDAI.geo” makes various sets of spatial information accessible, while on the other hand the “iDAI.gazetteer” is used as a hub to connect the different resources within the DAI infrastructure and also acts as a gate to the Linked Data cloud by establishing links to existing resources like Pleiades, Pelagios and geonames. Thus users can not only view all data collected in the project but also to use the resulting application as a starting point for further research into other systems.