Miró CARME
(Servei d’Arqueologia de Barcelona, Spain)
Keywords: Archaeological Map. Heritage, open data, city’s historical past
Abstract:
The Map represents an inventory of the city’s historical past, devised with the aim of providing a corpus of unified information that contains all the documentation on Barcelona’s archaeological heritage, to create a document oriented towards the analysis, diagnosis and assessment of subsoil and built heritage. The timescale of the remains documented date from prehistory up until the Spanish Civil War. Both the Archaeological Map and its contents are fully accessible online, and users can also download the data from Barcelona City Council’s Open Data project.
A series of points regarding the Map should be mentioned here:
The adoption of standard viewing tools will make the project easy to use for everyone, including the general public.
Emphasis has been placed on facilitating the online presence of a large volume of cartographic and documentary information.
The geographical display of each intervention and the documentation available for consultation in each case are well integrated. Thanks to the fact that most of the interventions are geo-localised, geographical display has been used as the Map’s main hub, which means that the user can access in-depth information using a more intuitive perspective, not only by carrying out searches with forms, but also by browsing across the land area.
A commitment to transparency and openness in documentation with respect to the general public and the scientific community. Both the Archaeological Map and its contents are fully accessible online, as well as being linked to Barcelona City Council’s Open Data project.
The Map represents a new tool for academic and scientific research in the field of Barcelona’s history and heritage.
One of the project’s strong points is that archaeological information can be consulted on the Geoportal in a broader context that includes all the other layers of corporative geographical information. We have opted to use Google Maps, above all because it is a clear leader in non-professional geographical knowledge consultation environments, and also thanks to the huge range of display possibilities that it offers, both through the use of technologies such as StreetView and the fact that 3-D displays can be inlaid within it. However, consultations can also be made using Open Street Map, or with Barcelona City Council’s plot map or its official city guide.