Shaping Archaeological Archives

Archaeology as a discipline has undergone significant changes over the past decades, in particular concerning best practices for how to handle the vast quantities of data that the discipline generates. Much of this data has often ended up in physical — or, more recently, digital — archives and been left untouched for years, despite containing critical information. But as many recent research projects explore how best to unleash the potential of these archives through publication, digitization, and improved accessibility, attention is now turning to the best practices that should underpin this trend.

In this volume, scholars turn their attention to how best to work with and shape archaeological archives, and what this means for the field as a whole. The majority of case studies here explore archaeological sites in the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, some of which are conflict zones today. However, the contributions also showcase more broadly the depth of research on archaeological archives as a whole, and offer reflections upon the relationship between archaeological practices and archival forms. In so doing, the volume is able to offer a unique dialogue on best practices for the dissemination and synthetization of knowledge from archives more generally, whether physical or digital.

List of Illustrations

Abbreviations

1. Shaping Archaeological Archives: Fieldwork, Collections, and Private Archives — Issues of Curation and Accessibility
Rubina Raja 

2. Who Can Access the Past? Archives, Technological Solutionism and Digital Colonialism in (Post-) Conflict Syria
Zena Kamash

3. Unclassified: Structured Silences in the Archaeological Archive
Jen A. Baird

4. Collaborative Curation of Digital Archaeological Archives: Promise, Prospects, and Challenges
Anne Hunnell Chen

5. Archiving Palmyra: Outcomes of Inquiry into Archaeological Legacy Data
Olympia Bobou, Amy C. Miranda, Rubina Raja, and Julia Steding

6. Considerations in Archive Archaeology: Past and Present Colonialism in the Study of Palmyra’s Archaeology and History
Amy C. Miranda and Rubina Raja

7. Revisiting Harald Ingholt's Excavation Diaries: Zooming in on Two Graves in the South-West Necropolis of Palmyra and their Inscriptions
Rubina Raja and Julia Steding

8. Pompeii as an Archive
Eric Poehler

9. Digitizing Knossos Using the Sir Arthur Evans Archive
John Pouncett and Andrew Shapland

10. Using Legacy Data to Reconstruct the University of Michigan's Early Twentieth-Century Excavation Methodology at Karanis
Andrew T. Wilburn

11. Placing the Container before the Content: The Cases of the 'Iron Field' and 'Mosaic Field' at Eski Kăhta at the Dörner Archive – Forschungsstelle Asia Minor, Münster
Emanuele E. Intagliata

12. Excavating Time and Space: The Archive of the Hama Expedition in the National Museum of Denmark
Anne Haslund Hansen and John Lund

13. The Mosaics from the 1928–1929 Campaigns of the Joint British-American Expedition to Gerasa: Drawings by Grace and Dorothy Crowfoot
Lisa Brody and Rubina Raja

14. Digitizing the Archaeological Finds and the Photographic Archive of the German Excavation Campaigns in Samarra (1911-1913) at the Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin
Miriam Kühn

15. Analogue Problems Through a Digital Lens: Reconsidering Underlying Issues with Archaeological Archival Practice Using the Digitization of the Samarra Archives
Rhiannon Garth Jones

16. Digital Data and Recontextualization: The Case of South Italian Pottery
Vinnie Nørskov and Marie Hélène van de Ven

17. From Paper to Open-Air Archive: Reconstructing Illegal Excavations and Art-Market Circulations of Archaeological Objects in the Case of the Archaic Sanctuary on Timpone della Motta, Southern Italy
Gloria Mittica, Carmelo Colelli, and Jan Kindberg Jacobsen

18. The History and Implications of the American Center of Research's (ACOR) Archival Digitization
Pearce Paul Creasman and Ryder Kouba

19. From Legacy Data to Urban Experiences: Reconstructing the Byzantine Athenian Agora
Fotini Kondyli

20. The Future of Corinth's Archaeological Archive: Toward an Inclusive and Interactive Heritage
Ioulia Tzonou

21. The Challenge of Spatial Ambiguity in Geographic Information Systems Using Legacy Archaeological Records
Jon M. Frey

22. Digitized Archives of Illicit Antiquities: Academic Research, Dissemination, and Impact
Christos Tsirogiannis

Indices