Online Cultural Heritage Research Environment (OCHRE)
The “Online Cultural Heritage Research Environment” (OCHRE) is an Internet database system for cultural heritage information. It is intended for researchers engaged in artifactual and textual studies of various kinds. It is especially suitable (1) for organizing and publishing the results of archaeological excavations and surveys and (2) for preparing and disseminating philological text editions and dictionaries.
OCHRE is currently being tested and refined by several pilot projects. An online help system and detailed user manual are under development. When testing and documentation are completed, OCHRE will be made available to other researchers. For more information, please contact David Schloen at the University of Chicago.
Purpose and Scope
OCHRE encompasses the varied evidence of past human activity, written and unwritten, within a flexible yet coherent framework. It has a simple basic structure—a “core ontology”—within which it can integrate data of diverse origins. Archaeologists and philologists work with information that is (1) derived from multiple sources; (2) recorded in diverse formats, as photographs, drawings, maps, structured tables, and unstructured text; and (3) described using different taxonomies. OCHRE is designed to organize such information into a coherent, easily searchable corpus, not only within a given research project, but also across multiple projects.
OCHRE can support an unlimited number of research projects, enabling each project to control its information and share it with others while still preserving its own terminology. The system has been thoroughly tested by several archaeological and philological projects based at the University of Chicago, Harvard University, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Southern California, the University of Toronto, Brigham Young University, and elsewhere.
Project Examples
Examples of archaeological and philological projects that are using OCHRE to integrate and publish their data include the following (click the icon on the left to launch the project in OCHRE):
The Chicago Hittite Dictionary (directed by Theo van den Hout and Harry Hoffner of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago)
The Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project (directed by Martin Peilstöcker of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Aaron Burke of the University of California at Los Angeles)
The Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon (directed by Lawrence Stager of Harvard University and Daniel Master of Wheaton College)
Marathi Online (directed by Philip Engblom of the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations of the University of Chicago)
Neo-Babylonian Trial Procedure (directed by Bruce Wells of St. Joseph’s University and Rachel Magdalene of Augustana College)
The Neubauer Expedition to Zincirli (directed by David Schloen of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago)
The Old Assyrian Research Environment (directed by Edward Stratford of Brigham Young University)
The Persepolis Fortification Archive Project (directed by Matthew Stolper of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago)
The Tell al-Judaidah Publication Project (directed by Lynn Swartz Dodd of the University of Southern California)
The Tayinat Archaeological Project (directed by Timothy Harrison of the University of Toronto)
The Zeitah Excavations (directed by Ron Tappy of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary)
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