Digital Research Archives

Starting in 2008, I became involved in efforts to digitise the massive archives of a number of long-lasting, largely unpublished archaeological projects at the Penn Museum (al-Hiba, Gordion, Hasanlu). The materials accumulated by these projects consist of tens of thousands of photographs, object cards, catalogues, field notebooks, plans, and drawings. In 2009, with Gareth Darbyshire, the Gordion Archivist at the Penn Museum, I consolidated these separate initiatives into the Digital Research Archives Project, and created a state–of–the–art digitisation laboratory to allow these projects to coordinate methodologies and share resources. The goal of the project is to facilitate research and accelerate the publication of these datasets by developing an online research environment. This environment, powered by a sophisticated database that stores and correlates digital versions of the materials, would be accessible from any location, and provide the tools to manage and process the data. It would free scholars from the burden of data processing and allow them to devote their time and energy to the primary task of archaeological interpretation.