Christof FLÜGEL1 / Kurt SCHALLER2
(1Landessstelle nichtstaatliche Museen Munich, Germany / 2University of Salzburg, Austria)

Outline:

We will present the final version of our joint project “MUSEEN VERNETZT”, funded by the Bayerische Sparkassenstiftung Munich. The main aim was to bring together information between the different Limes World heritage sites along the Main river section of the Upper German Limes and related finds in the local museums (no World Heritage), using a new archaeological information system intended for a broader public, but not excluding specialists in the field of archaeology.

Abstract:

The 50 kms of the Mainlimes river frontier belong to the German section of the multinational world heritage site “Frontiers of the Roman Empire”. It is particularly suited as a regional testbed for developing a low-approach archeological information system, bringing together understandable archeological information on well-documented sites, themself being part of the mentioned world heritage site, and related important finds in the local museums, which according to UNESCO cannot be part of  the World Heritage Site. This academic separation is hardly understandable for non-specialists and especially on the Limes people will first gather information in local museums before heading out to the green field which once was a Roman fortlet. The Mainlimes information system bridges the gap between sites and major finds, using different “information containers” and elements of storytelling. As the system offers multiple ways to access the content there is a certain danger of getting

lost in too much and too heterogeneous information. The answer to this is consistent page design and the consequent use of interactive cartography as a

primary tool for navigation. The application is developed to run completely in a non-proprietary open source

LAMP environment, using AJAX style techniques for client side scripting (mainly in the field of interactive cartography). The user interface is implemented fully in HTML and CSS. A Flash plug-in is only required for the display of movies, but alternatively users can download films in wmv or H.264 format.

Keywords:

Limes World Heritage Site / Mainlimes / Information System