Description languages for cultural heritage documentation

As part of a larger project that investigates the history of archaeological computing, the paper focuses on the problem of language as a tool to afford major features in the world of cultural heritage documentation: a) the interaction between theoretical thinking and computer applications; b) the nature of language and its relationship with computer tools; c) the potential use of the web and its crucial role in a new type of communication based on the principle of shared knowledge; and d) the increased visibility of archaeological research in the information society. Based on the assumption that the language can be considered as a tangible manifestation of a method, the use of description languages has characterised the history of archaeological computing since the pioneering work of scholars who approached cultural heritage documentation as well as archaeological data classification. Today's consolidated use of multimedia communication has turned to the web as a transmission tool, thus solving old problems in innovative ways. In particular, through the illustration of case studies conducted from the Fifties to nowadays, the paper intends to investigate the formalisation mechanisms of archaeological interpretation through the integration of theory and experimentation.