Program

Preservation and Access: Grants to Preserve and Create Access to Humanities Collections

Period of Performance

7/1/2007 - 5/31/2010

Funding Totals

$331,484.00 (approved)
$331,484.00 (awarded)


Diyala Virtual Archive

FAIN: PC-50084-07

University of Chicago (Chicago, IL 60637-5418)
Clemens D. Reichel (Project Director: July 2006 to August 2013)

The creation of a virtual archive of archaeological data on ancient Mesopotamia, focusing on sites in the Diyala Region of northeast Iraq (3200-1800 BCE), which incorporates a relational, expandable database to be mounted on an existing Web site at the Oriental Institute.

This application seeks funding for a full web-based publication of the Diyala Excavations, a fundamentally important archaeological project undertaken in Iraq undertaken by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago between 1930 and 1938. The results from these excavations helped to establish the backbone for much of Mesopotamia's early chronology and history. Since 1994 the Oriental Institute has been compiling a multi-relational database to publish these artifacts on-line. This database will go live in Fall 2006. The current proposal seeks funding for the creation of a "Virtual Archive," which will make all this documentation available on-line in scanned and indexed format. Scholars from around the world will have free and unrestricted access to this important corpus of archaeological material, allowing them to examine the field records first-hand and to question the excavators' conclusions and interpretations in light of their own research.