Multimedia Archaeological Map of Sicily (CAMS): how it works and methodological notes
The map is essentially a georeferenced, multi-thematic and muti-territorial archive extracted from the wider archive "Heritage"And therefore inherits all the characteristics that are typical of web 3.0:
- multimedia: Sheets containing text, images, audio and video and therefore with the possibility of also inserting audio guides, video guides and further in-depth multimedia documents
- GeoWeb: Information on geo-referenced interactive Google maps, localization and identification of the path to reach the property (where relevant). Some assets are also visible on Street view, therefore with a 360 ° view of the context in which the asset is located.
- Social Web: Interactive cards with the possibility of inserting reviews, experiences. voting, comments and sharing on various social networks.
- Multi thematic and Multi territorial (Multi-archive): The archive allows the visualization on web pages of individual thematic and/or territorial archives (integrated with each other). By assigning new categories and tags, it is possible to create an unlimited number of thematic and territorial sub-archives.
- Advanced Search: by keywords, phrases (full text), cities, places, locations or geographical areas chosen by the user, physical location of the user, categories, sub-categories and tags
- WikiWeb: possibility of autonomous management of the cards by the authors or collaborators themselves
- Multilingual: the innovative neural machine translation system is used.
Methodological notes
The population of the CAMS files as well as of the entire Heritage Archive proceeds in incremental phases: cataloging, georeferencing, insertion of information and images. Immediately after having loaded the first information (taken from various public and private sources), a subsequent phase starts in parallel, which sees the review of the inserted cards to improve the content and enrich it with further information, documents and audiovisuals.
In particular, for CAMS, various sources were used in the initial phase of first drafting (beta phase) of the files and population of the archive, including:
- Provincial Territorial Plans
- Guidelines of the regional landscape plan
- Provincial landscape plans
- http://www.sitr.regione.sicilia.it/geoportale/it
- Studies, researches and reports by scholars (indicated in the individual cards)
- Where in the landscape plans or by the regional SITR the archaeological site is identified by a large area and therefore in a non-punctual way, it was preferred to catalog the site as "to be geolocated". In a subsequent phase, we will try to define precisely, as much as possible using satellite vision, the individual archaeological components and the definition "to be geolocated" will be removed.
The CAMS presented in its initial phase is NOT an arrival point (even if it lasted decades) but the starting point at the basis of a continuous improvement process. In fact, starting from the so-called "beta phase", the entire archive will be subjected to corrections, additions and revisions. Furthermore, new categories will be added in order to identify thematic sub-archives of interest. Archaeologists, scholars, bodies and associations are invited to join the project by providing their valuable contribution. In this regard, you can visit the page: "Your Contributions"
Relationship with the Heritage project
The CAMS Archaeological Multimedia Map is part of a broader project (Heritage Archive) which sees the cataloging and geolocation of the Sicilian and Maltese Cultural Heritage (tangible and intangible).
Note on the generations of the Heritage Archive
- First Generation (1995): “Access” database offline only
- Second Generation (2004): “Web Access” database searchable online, text only
- Third Generation (2010): “Visual” database in Mysql, searchable online - text and images
- Fourth Generation (2014): Dedicated database searchable Online integrated with Google Maps and web 3.0 technology (Georeferenced, Responsive, Wiki, Advanced search)
- Fifth Generation (2020): Online "GeoSocial" Archive (Georeferenced, Social, Multi-thematic, Territorial, Advanced Search)
