[First posted in AWOL 11 August 2011, updated 30 September 2018]
The Digital Archaeological Atlas of the Holy Land
Coming Soon: Virtual Reality on the Web! VR Walk-throughs of Archaeological Sites in the Lower Kidron Valley!
The Digital Archaeological Atlas of the Holy Land (DAAHL) is an
international project that brings together experts in information
technology including Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the
archaeology of the Holy Land (modern Israel, Palestine, Jordan, southern
Lebanon, Syria and the Sinai Peninsula) to create the first on-line
digital atlas of the region held sacred to the three great monotheistic
faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Using the power of spatial
information systems such as Google Maps and Google Earth, GIS, the tens
of thousands of recorded archaeological sites for the region - from the
remote prehistoric periods to the early 20th century - will be entered
into a comprehensive database along with site maps, photographs and
artifacts. The historical and archaeological content for this project
will be developed by a team of over 30 international scholars working in
the region, helping to provide the data used to create the Atlas. This
website and its content will serve as the prototype "knowledge node" of
a more comprehensive Digital Archaeological Atlas Network for the
Mediterranean region.
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The site now contains a variety of Google Maps interfaces that let
you explore the region and the archaeological resources it contains. The link bar under the DAAHL header provides access to the main functions currently available in the website. These include:
The Mediterranean Archaeological Network
or MedArchNet is one of the first attempts to create 'Portal Science'
for archaeologists and the interested public. Consequently, a major
goal of MedArchNet is to make archaeological data from the Mediterranean
lands accessible to various communities, including school teachers,
tourists and travel agents, university students and professors,
researchers, and public policy makers. MedArchNet taps into the
fast-growing field of 'portal science' and will serve researchers and
explorers as a platform for international collaboration, while also
allowing the general public to share in the excitement of archaeology
and discovery. This link takes you to the MedArchNet homepage.
Empires
presents one set of examples of Global Moments in the Levant. On this
page the DAAHL includes an interactive Google Maps interface that
presents the rise and fall of empires in the ancient world. The map can
be animated to display the empires across time; individual empires can
be selected to display summary information, and archaeological sites
extant during the empire's time span can be displayed and queried on the
map.
Archaeological Periods
organize over 17,000 sites in the DAAHL database by more than 60 time
periods from the Lower Paleolithic, more than 2 million years ago, to
the Late Ottoman period, which ended in 1918. A Google Maps interface
lets the user animate site clusters through time, and explore the
distribution of archaeological sites in the Levant during any of these
periods. Short introductions to the time periods are included as well.
Shishak's Campaign
presents information related to the Egyptian Pharoah Sheshonq I (known
in the Hebrew Bible as Shishak) and his military expedition into
southwestern Asia. His invasion of Judah and Israel is documented on the
south wall of the Temple of Amun Ra at Karnak, and described in the
Bible (1 Kings 11:40; 14:25; 2 Chronicles 12:2-9). The DAAHL uses the
latest "tour" capability in the Google Earth API to track some of the
movements of Shishak's army.
Case Studies
are specialized, in depth explorations of different subjects in the
atlas. Tom Levy's exploration of the Edomite Lowlands during the Iron
Age, which is accompanied by an interactive Google Maps display, is a
prime example. Other case studies are presented as online Powerpoint or
HTML presentations.
About the Atlas
displays information about the main research partners who are
developing the atlas. The Atlas is an international project that brings
together experts in information technology and Levantine archaeology to
create the first on-line digital atlas of the region held sacred to the
three great monotheistic faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
PEF Maps
are maps produced for the Palestine Exploration Fund by Claude R.
Conder of the British Ordanace Survey in the 1870s and 1880s. These
classic maps contain more than 10,000 place names, and are an important
resource for Late Ottoman period Palestine. The GAIA Lab at Arizona
State University converted the map sheets into more than 50,000 tiles in
an interactive Google Maps display that can be zoomed and panned to
show the maps in the background, with the DAAHL archaeological sites
superimposed.
Search Database
opens a page in the website where users can query the database by such
things as site name, time period, site type, site conditions, etc.
Queries are submitted to the DAAHL web server and the results are
returned to the user as dynamic kml, which opens on the user's computer
in Google Earth. All sites displayed in the result sets are
"backlinked" to the DAAHL database, so they can be explored indiviually
by following their links. See the video below for an example of a time
period search.
The Spatial Search
link opens a page with in interactive Google Maps display. The user
can draw an irregular region of interest on the map and perform a search
for all the sites in the DAAHL database that fall within one kilometer
of the search region. Like the database search, results are displayed
as points in Google Earth; the user can determine the point display
style, and all search results are back-linked to the Atlas.
Use the Make Maps
function to make queries of sites by time period and/or site/feature
type, and display the results on a Google Maps interactive map that
includes site clusters and individual sites. Clusters can be clicked to
zoom to the next level, displaying smaller clusters and individual
sites. Hover over site points to see the site name. Use your
computer's screen copy function to copy the map; then paste it into a
graphics editing program and crop it to the map--then you can use the
map in presentations or documents.
Site Preservation
links to a page in the DAAHL website that displays two film clips. The
first shows how the Spatial Search is done, and illustrates how this
function can be used to help preserve archaeological sites by minimizing
the impact of development projects through avoiding sites. The second
film clip is a trailer to a movie that discusses the danger to one of
Jordan's most significant Early Bronze Age sites posed by expanding
gravel quarries.
Contributors
to the DAAHL project have come from many countries, universities, and
research institutions. All sites and project data that are contributed
to the DAAHL are "branded" with the contributor's information and
cross-linked to their websites. The DAAHL database safeguards our
contributor's information and drives website traffic to their research
projects.
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