Medieval Nemea: Building a Public Digital Resource

Authors

Lauren A. Vagts, University of Nebraska - LincolnFollow
Effie Athanassopoulos, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Date of this Version

Spring 5-2016

Document Type

Poster

Citation

Vagts, L.A., Athanassopoulos, E. (2016). Medieval Nemea: Building a Public Digital Resource. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Department of Anthropology. https://nemea2015.omeka.net

UCARE Poster session, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Research Fair, April 2016, Lincoln, NE.

Comments

Copyright © 2016 Lauren A. Vagts & Effie Athanassopoulos

Abstract

This site presents medieval ceramics from the excavations at the site of Nemea, in southern Greece. We have created a digital resource with results and artifacts from archaeological excavations conducted in the 1970s and 1980s, which have remained unpublished. The website incorporates a variety of materials, including excavation notebooks, maps, data bases, photographs, and 3D models of ceramics. Omeka was selected as the software for this project for several reasons. Omeka offers the Dublin Core metadata as a way to standardize and organize digital data, allowing its users access to a well-developed platform. Omeka is also an open source software allowing anyone to build and access digital resources, as well as the opportunity to share cultural heritage resources worldwide. Lastly, plugins are useful tools which allow users to broaden the fundamental functionality of Omeka. As digital technologies progress, so will our abilities to enhance this digital resource. Although Omeka was created for a 2D environment, we anticipate that soon it will offer tools that will allow the incorporation of 3D data. In the near future, we plan to create an open forum and invite comments and suggestions from users for improvements of this digital resource. Another addition will be to create a ‘How-to E-book’ page that will explain the process and the steps that we have followed, and make the addition of new content easy and user-friendly. Finally, resources such as this strengthen the connection between research, heritage and preservation, by broadening participation and making accessible material that previously had been available only to specialists.