H. Zeiner 1 / H. Sütterlin 2
(1 Joanneum Research, Institute of Information Systems & Information Management, Graz, Austria / 2 Römerstadt Augusta Raurica, Augst, Switzerland)

Motivation: An important contextual element of a cultural heritage object is the location. The location attribute is a natural element of the metadata fields. It is an equally important order criterion such as time. Objects are grouped by time, by location or by thematic fields. The result of a location grouping is currently not always on a map.
The IMDAS-Pro GIS Component supports this now – the position of excavated objects can be shown on a map. The usage of a map makes the presentation of the catalogue objects more valuable. The GIS component will be used and improved regarding the requirements of the archaeologists in RÖMERSTADT AUGUSTA RAURICA. There background maps are prepared including the archeological excavation area boundaries. The excavation objects itself are dynamically generated from the IMDAS-Pro system. The generated spreading map can be seen as a useful technological tool in archaeological analysis workflow.
Main benefits are:

  • The seamless integration of the GIS component increases the value of such catalogues. An item collection can be used without additional manual efforts in a GIS (Geographical Information System). Cultural objects that were rarely considered before can gain attention through the visualization of the location relation.
  • Improvement of the search interface. This could help the user by querying a database via a map.
  • Usage of Open GIS Consortium (OGC) standards. GIS software specialists such as the market leader ESRI are building up standardized access to geographical data and services. The advantage for archaeologists is that geo-referenced objects of the IMDAS-Pro solution can be easily exchanged between the systems and different research groups.

A goal is to build up cultural heritage map for Europe. Standardized GIS tools help the creations process of such maps. E.g. objects (e.g. coins, spreading of ceramics, glass etc.) for a large area e.g. the whole Roman Empire would be of high interest for the research community. This could increase the value of the object catalogues and enables the multiple uses of the content.