Syrian Heritage Archive Project

Online archive for a cultural property register of Syrian monuments

“We are doing everything we can to use digitalization to document and preserve the cultural heritage and Syrian identity in the best possible way. Modularly networked, standards-compliant, web-based database solutions are indispensable work tools. It was important to us that we were able to implement our special requirements with easydb .”

Issam Ballouz, architect team Syrian Heritage Archive Project Friends of the Museum s für Islamic Kunst eV

Background and goals of the project

The conflict in Syria, which has been going on for several years now, threatens people's lives as well as the outstanding Syrian cultural heritage and dam important contemporary historical documents and important pillars of Syrian identity. Comprehensive scientific documentation of the Syrian cultural landscape was still missing. International and Syrian teams have set themselves the task of systematically indexing Syrian cultural assets and digitally securing them in Archive . The aim is to use and make available the archive data for an overarching cultural property register for Syria.

One of the participating projects is the Syrian Heritage Archive Project - a cooperation project between the Museum of Islamic Art of the Berlin State Museums and the German Archaeological Institute (DAI). The project is funded by the Cultural Preservation Program of the Foreign Office and by the Friends of the Museum for Islamic Art eV.

Online archive for Syrian cultural assets

In November 2013, the Museum of Islamic Art and the DAI began digitizing their archive holdings. Both institutions have large amounts of analogue material at their disposal thanks to years of research: photos, documentation, plans and maps. A Syrian-German team has taken on the task of systematically indexing the material from the Museum of Islamic Art and making it available in the DAI's object database [iDAI.objects/Arachne]. A focus on Syria and the Syrians was and is a basic condition of the work. The project team viewed and analyzed the material as part of the inventory of the archive holdings and, on this basis, developed a data model for recording the cultural heritage.

Technical and documentary requirements

In the first project phase, the web-based technology easydb was introduced to manage the Museum 's now digitized holdings and the database was modified according to the requirements of the project. The high flexibility and adaptability of easydb was important in order to make the archive usable sustainably in the international context of the project.

An interdisciplinary approach was chosen for data modeling, which depicts the multidimensional genesis of Syria's cultural heritage. With this approach, the team aims to make a contribution to the cultural heritage register, which serves to map the cultural inventory, and at the same time to participate in the efforts to develop an internationally effective, methodical approach to documenting Syrian cultural assets.

Data ordering approach

The assignment of all image objects is primarily determined geographically, visible through a hierarchized list of locations on the left. This is regularly synchronized with the DAI's online place dictionary (iDAI.Gazetieer) and the place descriptions it contains. Structural objects are divided into construction and usage phases. The specific description of the image objects is carried out systematically according to the template, motif and digital object.

International and transdisciplinary

The collection structure in easydb takes various aspects into account and is divided into three parts: 1) geographical, 2) archaeological and architectural, and 3) human and social Info . Dam makes an important contribution to the preservation of cultural heritage and “cultural memory” and enables multi-perspective access to the data. In the future, the database will be available to the Syrian population, the interested public and the international community for reconstruction, reconstruction and an interdisciplinary discussion of Syria.

Authority data, standards, services

Data collection by a heterogeneous specialist community plays an important role. When it comes to the topics of landscapes and buildings, the data structure takes into account the integration of Info on administration and condition, which is imported from another database (building and damage info system). The latter is based on the standard EN 16096:2012, Conservation of cultural heritage - condition survey and report for the built cultural heritage. In order to ensure uniform input and international readability, the fields are filled primarily using tables of values ​​and the integration of thesauri and standard services. In the sense of Linked Data, sources are indicated by URIs and are based on proven services and standards such as AAT (Art & Architecture Thesaurus), iDAI.Gazetteer (geographical location dictionary of the DAI), iDAI.bibliography (for literature), Common Authority File (GND) the German National Library, WorldCat, Wikidata and VIAF. For free text fields, specifying the authorship/source is mandatory. The conversion of the Islamic calendar to the Gregorian calendar and vice versa was taken into account in easydb . In addition to English, the online archive is also available in Arabic and German.

Rights management and data transfer

The future use of the data and content should be as accessible and transparent as possible. This is ensured by fundamental research and clarification of authorship and exploitation rights. The data for export is also provided in the internationally established LIDO format to ensure data transfer with existing databases and web portals.

www.syrian-heritage.org

Case study as PDF