Abstract
Despite growing focus, archives remain under-utilised in archaeology and cultural heritage research. Regrettably, COVID-19 exacerbated archive inaccessibility, as researchers were largely cut off from physical resources, thereby underlining the need to develop best practice scenarios. Here we present a case study that demonstrates the potential of archives when made freely available.
Highlights
During the more than a decade-long civil war, Syria has seen systematic destruction of its cultural heritage, hereunder Palmyra’s art and architecture, and the diaspora of Syrian nationals displaced from their home country
Enhancing the accessibility of the Ingholt Archive aims to set a benchmark for best practice in archaeology and lead by example in future research and cultural heritage preservation initiatives
The publication of the Ingholt Archive aims to set a new standard in archaeology for making information accessible and reusable and to raise the profile of archival work within the discipline of archaeology
Summary
During the more than a decade-long civil war, Syria has seen systematic destruction of its cultural heritage, hereunder Palmyra’s art and architecture, and the diaspora of Syrian nationals displaced from their home country. The project Archive Archaeology: Preserving and Sharing Palmyra’s Cultural Heritage through Harald Ingholt’s Digital Archives, established by Rubina Raja in 2020 (https://projects.au.dk/archivearcheology/), is one example of such an initiative It will make the archive of Palmyrene funerary sculpture, compiled by Danish archaeologist Harald Ingholt (hereafter the Ingholt Archive), available both in print and as an eBook—in an extensive, annotated publication—and freely online as open data in the form of the raw data: high-resolution scans of the original archive sheets, under a CC BY4.0 licence (Raja 2021). Despite its known excavation history and its documentation in the archive, the Syrian civil war and the destruction of art and architecture mean that this, and many other objects, cannot be accurately accounted for Should this sarcophagus have been damaged or looted, the images and annotations of the Ingholt Archive will prove a valuable resource to those interested in the preservation of Syrian cultural heritage—scholars and the public alike
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