# The Documentary Archaeology of Late Medieval Europe ![dalme_inv.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum8726/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/pizzorno/files/dalme_inv.jpg?itok=6QPmy2bu) *Inventory of the estate of Guilhem de Cavalhon, a resident of Marseille who died in 1405.*In 2014 [Dan Smail](http://scholar.harvard.edu/smail) and I started [DALME](https://dalme.org/) with the broad goal of laying the foundations for a documentary archaeology of late medieval Europe. Millions of pages of records have survived from this period, and scattered across them, especially in sources such as household inventories, are innumerable references to household things, from cooking pans and crockery to beds and garments. These are the textual counterparts to objects found in museum collections and on archaeological sites. But although museums have made tangible things increasingly accessible to the world of scholarship and teaching, there is no comparable collection of the textual things found in archival records. DALME leverages advances in data science and machine learning to extract vast amounts of material culture data from medieval household inventories in a manner that makes comparison possible between objects described in widely varying ways in documents, as well as with museum objects and excavated artefacts. The data the project produces is made accessible online as open, well-structured, and machine-actionable datasets readily amenable to computational analysis. ![dalme_logo.png](/sites/g/files/omnuum8726/files/styles/hwp_1_1__100x100_scale/public/pizzorno/files/dalme_logo.png?itok=a3d2v0RG) [**Visit DALME online**](https://dalme.org/) ## Recent Publications Download 3 citations download- [BibTeX](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=12&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&&content_filter%5B0%5D=688410&content_filter%5B1%5D=688395&content_filter%5B2%5D=688394&content_filter%5B3%5D=688402&&format=bibtex) - [EndNote X3 XML](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=12&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&&content_filter%5B0%5D=688410&content_filter%5B1%5D=688395&content_filter%5B2%5D=688394&content_filter%5B3%5D=688402&&format=endnote8) - [EndNote 7 XML](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=12&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&&content_filter%5B0%5D=688410&content_filter%5B1%5D=688395&content_filter%5B2%5D=688394&content_filter%5B3%5D=688402&&format=endnote7) - [Endnote tagged](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=12&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&&content_filter%5B0%5D=688410&content_filter%5B1%5D=688395&content_filter%5B2%5D=688394&content_filter%5B3%5D=688402&&format=tagged) - [Marc](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=12&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&&content_filter%5B0%5D=688410&content_filter%5B1%5D=688395&content_filter%5B2%5D=688394&content_filter%5B3%5D=688402&&format=marc) - [PubMedId](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=12&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&&content_filter%5B0%5D=688410&content_filter%5B1%5D=688395&content_filter%5B2%5D=688394&content_filter%5B3%5D=688402&&format=pubmed_id) - [RIS](/bibcite/export?pager_style=no_pager&number_of_items=12&sort_field=bibcite_year--desc&&content_filter%5B0%5D=688410&content_filter%5B1%5D=688395&content_filter%5B2%5D=688394&content_filter%5B3%5D=688402&&format=ris) ### 2019 Daniel Lord Smail, Gabriel H. Pizzorno, and Nathaniel Hay. 2019. “[Recyclage et L’ontologie de L’objet Dans les Textes du Bas Moyen Âge : L’exemple de Marseille](/publication/recyclage-et-lontologie-de-lobjet-dans-les-textes-du-bas-moyen-age-lexemple-de)”. In L’objet Au Moyen Âge et à L’époque Moderne : Fabriquer, échanger, Consommer et Recycler, Pp. 393-401. Caen: Presses Universitaires de Caen Daniel Lord Smail, Gabriel H. Pizzorno, and Nathaniel Hay. 2019. “[Recyclage et L’ontologie de L’objet Dans les Textes du Bas Moyen Âge : L’exemple de Marseille](/publication/recyclage-et-lontologie-de-lobjet-dans-les-textes-du-bas-moyen-age-lexemple-de)”. In L’objet Au Moyen Âge et à L’époque Moderne : Fabriquer, échanger, Consommer et Recycler, Pp. 393-401. Caen: Presses Universitaires de Caen - add\_circle do\_not\_disturb\_on Abstract - [ picture\_as\_pdfPDF](/sites/g/files/omnuum8726/files/pizzorno/files/smail_pizzorno_hay_2019.pdf) Pendant la dernière décennie du XIXe siècle, l’idée d’une science de la société fondée sur une approche positiviste commençait à prendre forme. Le but en était de construire une méthodologie pouvant réduire les phénomènes sociaux humains en... - [ picture\_as\_pdfPDF](/sites/g/files/omnuum8726/files/pizzorno/files/smail_pizzorno_hay_2019.pdf) ### 2018 Gabriel H. Pizzorno and Daniel Lord Smail. 2018. “[An Archaeology of Textual Things](/publication/archaeology-textual-things)”. In Situ Gabriel H. Pizzorno and Daniel Lord Smail. 2018. “[An Archaeology of Textual Things](/publication/archaeology-textual-things)”. In Situ - add\_circle do\_not\_disturb\_on Abstract - [ picture\_as\_pdfPDF](/sites/g/files/omnuum8726/files/pizzorno/files/pizzorno_and_smail_2018.pdf) In the past few decades, the efforts of museums and other cultural institutions to digitize and make their collections accessible online have made massive amounts of information about artifacts available to the general public and researchers alike. From... - [ picture\_as\_pdfPDF](/sites/g/files/omnuum8726/files/pizzorno/files/pizzorno_and_smail_2018.pdf) Gabriel H. Pizzorno, Daniel Lord Smail, and Laura Morreale. 2018. “[Using Linked Open Data for a Documentary Archaeology of Late Medieval Europe](/publication/using-linked-open-data-documentary-archaeology-late-medieval-europe)”. In Linked Pasts IV. Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz Gabriel H. Pizzorno, Daniel Lord Smail, and Laura Morreale. 2018. “[Using Linked Open Data for a Documentary Archaeology of Late Medieval Europe](/publication/using-linked-open-data-documentary-archaeology-late-medieval-europe)”. In Linked Pasts IV. Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz - add\_circle do\_not\_disturb\_on Abstract - [ picture\_as\_pdfPDF](/sites/g/files/omnuum8726/files/pizzorno/files/dalme_lod_poster.pdf) The “Documentary Archaeology of Late Medieval Europe” (DALME) is a publicly accessible database of material culture based on the textual sources from later medieval Europe. The goal of the project is to increase our understanding of Europe’s material... - [ picture\_as\_pdfPDF](/sites/g/files/omnuum8726/files/pizzorno/files/dalme_lod_poster.pdf)