STARC and DIOPTRA participate in Digital Humanities Event at Oxford
CyI’s Science and Technology in Archaeology Research Center (STARC) participated in the annual Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School. STARC’s team presented its work in peer review poster at Oxford University Museum of Natural History focusing on OpeNumisma, an open source web-based platform focused on digital heritage numismatic collections.
The platform provides an innovative merge of digital imaging and data management systems that offer great new opportunities for research and the dissemination of knowledge. A key feature of this platform is the application of Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI)*, a computational photographic method that offers tremendous image analysis possibilities for numismatic research. The design of OpeNumisma aims at the creation of web digital platforms and collections. The first successful implementation of OpeNomisma has been the creation of a digital library for the medieval coins from the collection of the Bank of Cyprus Cultural Foundation.
The digital library is supported and included in the platform of DIOPTRA, The Edmée Leventis Digital Library of Cypriot Culture. It contains 134 medieval coins with the potential extension up to 500 coins and offers the virtual examination of coins through the implementation of Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI). Advanced imaging technologies and high-resolution super-zoom are complemented with text descriptions, expert essays, links to other collections and repositories that provide context as well as alternative ways to study and access the material.
The presented poster explicated the platforms’ capabilities in the digitally interactive exploration of coins’ collections, discover embossed inscriptions set in the context of a comprehensive digital library that is designed to disseminate knowledge on the history and culture of ancient and medieval. Designed to be used by non-technical or IT experts, OpeNumisma interactive functions and applications are based on a friendly user interface. OpeNumisma data can produce Linked Data; the RDF produces a SPARQL endpoint using PHP, ARC2 libraries and is based on CIDOC-CRM Conceptual Reference Model ontology of exchange heterogeneous cultural heritage information.
The creation of OpeNumisma aims to significantly enhance the documentation and preservation of cultural heritage objects and to improve digital online collections. The innovative web-based platform can extend and support more advanced functionalities as well as to exploit the ever increasing technological opportunities to enhance the interactive experience between the user and online databases.
(*)Reflectance Transformation Imaging is a computational photographic method that is photographing objects under varying lighting conditions to reveal surface details. These images are then processed into one singe image and with the help of a virtual light the user can control the light angle to inspect the object.