Chairs: Willem BEEX, The Netherlands / Samuel Paley, USA
We continue to attract participants and listeners to this workshop, suggesting that the issues we raise are important to our fields. We would like to return next November and continue our discussion about publishing “old excavations and data” with new technologies. Two of the speakers in this workshop in the 11th congress, raised questions about accuracy, both in the older paper reconstructions of architecture and the digital reconstructions, virtually real, that have become increasingly eye-catching. So, perhaps we should step back from the questions about whether old excavations should be published with new technologies (they should!), heritage issues notwithstanding, and focus on the questions of truth, accuracy and the moral issues (that is where uncertainty comes into the discussion) inherent in our work. An area of interest to us this year is mapping, the digitizing of old maps and plans and checking them against modern maps and plans and other forms of collected data (ex. satellite imaging)—that is, how we can use old drawings to create new and perhaps more accurate drawings. And, we would like to divide this workshop into two sessions: the first with specific examples explained in 8-10 minutes presentations from your experiences digitizing and publishing old excavations and analyses and their old data (we will choose10 examples from those submitted); and, a second session (a hands-on methods workshop) on integrating old data, such as old drawings and maps, into new ones, based on real material, prior to further publication—the conveners and the invited speakers will exchange ideas about how to tackle the problems that go with our trying to achieve up-to-date publication, usable for future work, and as truthful as possible.