SSHOC archaeological case study Workshop - The Roman theatre in Catania from survey to interactive 4D visualisation

Archaeological field work is a complex process in which scientific resources and competences are allocated for long periods of time, sometimes years. However, the generated data is often either not available in digital form, stuck in data silos or not public. For this reason, the sustainability of archaeological research would benefit immensely from optimized and effective systems of digital documentation, analysis and visualisation of archaeological sites as well as from public, standardised data.

This workshop presents an archaeological case study of an actual transition of archaeological survey data from data silos to the cloud. Based on survey data of the Roman theatre in Catania, we show how the data can be visualized as an interactive virtual reconstruction of the theatre. We show how the FAIR principles and semantic modelling can be applied to archaeological data in practice by standardizing and connecting data and systems from different sources. The absence of public data is also a cultural issue since shareholders are often afraid that the data quality might not be sufficient for publishing. The workshop represents a milestone in the work of the SSHOC task 5.7, and we would like to share our experiences with the audience and vice versa.

In the first part of the workshop we present the case study as a work in progress. We look at the data and systems of the three partners, including an existing and a new visualisation of the Roman theatre and the Extended Matrix (EM) system. We conclude the first part with the integration process of systems and data that will lead to a unified workflow from survey data to an interactive 4D visualisation.

In the second part we situate the case study in the broader context of the SSHOC project and beyond. Parallel presentations will report on the FAIR principles in archaeology, the SSHOC reference ontology and the EMViq tool that accompanies the EM system. We will then discuss where to go from here and especially how to integrate the FAIR principles and the reference ontology in our work.

This workshop took place on 25 May 2021. A recording can be viewed at the SSHOC YouTube channel.