ARCHES: a journey well traversed

By Renier van der Merwe, MAEASaM UP and Mahmoud Abdelrazek, MAEASaM UCL, MAEASaM BIEA

Reflecting on their experiences on the development of the project’s Arches database, Renier van der Merwe and Mahmoud Abdelrazek offer some insights into their journey with Arches.

Presenting the project database in Nairobi provided the opportunity to explore the database in its full capacity with our stakeholders and project collaborators. The database was brought to life with practical demonstrations on how to navigate the platform, search its rich collections and compare different site reports with one another.

One of Arches’ key strengths is its ability to combine complex and heterogeneous heritage information into a standardised, usable and shareable format alongside the visualisation powers of a geographic information system (GIS). The platform supports the management and discovery of data using a semantic graph structure, known as resource models. Each resource model contains specific attributes used to describe heritage information in an intuitive and understandable way that allows users to compare information across a wide geographic area and between different heritage locations.

Beyond computational coding, the development of the database requires active participation and feedback by our project collaborators and partners. It is only through this engagement that we can develop a more comprehensive database ensuring that it is useful for heritage managers for the long term. This has been a core principle that we have followed throughout the development stages.

The Site Resource Model (SRM) is the largest of the seven models developed for the database. It is based on the structure of museum archival site records but contains additional descriptive attributes including threat and condition assessments. We wanted this resource to maintain as much contextual information as possible so as not to deviate from the original records but also to structure this information in a standardised way so that it is easily searchable and can be preserved for the long term. One of our largest tasks to date has been the development of the project’s vocabulary collections which are used to facilitate the standardisation of data entry. These collections offer thousands of terms used in African archaeology and related fields and cater for the huge diversity in different site types, chronological markers, archaeological finds, and much more.

Of course, our journey with Arches is by no means complete. We are planning the implementation of additional resource models which we hope will enhance the platform for built heritage and future site monitoring. We are also continuing to expand our project’s vast vocabulary collection with the addition of Arabic and French translations.

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