Il "Progetto Caere": un esempio di informatizzazione dei diari di scavo

In 1996 the Istituto per l'Archeologica Etrusco-Italica of the Italian National Research Council proposed, within the Cultural Heritage Special Project, the research programme "Establishment of an Archaeological Information System model and its application to ancient Caere" ("The Caere Project"). Its purpose is to use an archaeological information system to study the ancient Etruscan town of Caere, where the Institute has been carrying out surveys and excavations since 1982, together with the Superintendence of Southern Etruria. The authors illustrate an aspect of the project, related to the computerisation of the "Vigna Parrocchiale" excavation data. In fact, an innovative procedure was followed, through the use of the Standard Generalized Markup Language in order to encode the yearly excavation diaries in hypertext format. In this way, an easily transferable HTML text illustrated with photographic and graphic information was established. This type of text, which will be immediately available on-line, has allowed us to test new kinds of queries and information retrieval, in order to diachronically investigate the successive stages of our excavation and to organise the documentation relative to different areas, until finally reaching the essential association and the subsequent analysis of finds, also through the use of a statistical approach.