Archaeology and Computer Applications: the automatic cataloguing of Italian archaeological heritage, in F. Giligny, F. Djindjian, L. Costa, P. Moscati, S. Robert (eds.), Concepts, Methods and Tools. Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Conference on Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology

This paper is centered on the birth and early development of the automatic cataloging of archaeological heritage, with particular reference at the Seventies and Eighties that marked two very important decades in this sector. In fact, in these years in Italy as well as in other European countries, a lively debate aroused on this theme and set the basis for the development of the instruments and for the procedures and the techniques to be adopted. In this paper we will refer in particular to the Italian situation, where the introduction of computers in documentation procedures mostly pivot around two pioneering scholars: Oreste Ferrari and Paola Barocchi. Some reference will be made also to the situation in France and Britain. Some recent examples of ISMA on-line projects, such as the data-base Sethlans. Bronzi del Museo Faina, will also be examined.