Amidex projects Interdisciplinarity 2021

The VRAK3D project lies at the crossroads of several disciplines: archaeology, architecture, knowledge representation, and is based on innovative technologies: computer vision, deep learning, virtual and augmented reality. Based on the observation that, while obtaining 3D models in the field of heritage is now virtually resolved and no longer part of the field of Research, the link between knowledge and geometry remains embryonic.

This project is divided into four phases around the Glanum site, which has been extensively excavated since the 1920s:

1. Development of a 3D model of the site capable of supporting the archaeological knowledge already acquired, as well as serving as a user interface to help generate new knowledge (drone and terrestrial photogrammetry).
2. Development and formalization of a corpus of archaeological objects using ontologies aligned with existing work in the community (CRM-CIDOC, for example). This formalization of knowledge will describe both morphological aspects and the relationships that these elements may have with each other. For example, the topological relationship between a capital and an architrave.
3. Research these objects using deep learning on all the photos taken to obtain the 3D model. The search for these elements includes a phase of labeling the objects on the photos (e.g. blocks, capitals, column shafts, architraves, etc.), then searching them on all the photos of the site, and finally a 3D localization using the orientations of the photos calculated by photogrammetry.
4. The virtual reality aspects of the project will be broken down into several faculties: virtual tour of the site (headset and web), interface with current knowledge (e.g. corpus, archives, bibliography), manipulation of corpus elements identified on the 3D model by satisfying relationship constraints defined in ontologies, partial and virtual anastylosis with geometric quantification of relationship relevance.

Partner(s):

• Università di Sassari (Italy)

Identifying species is a major challenge in archaeology in order to better understand the history of human/animal relationships. The recently developed ZooMS (Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry) method enables this identification to be made, via collagen peptide analysis. Minimally or non-invasively invasive, ZooMS overcomes the limitations inherent in traditional archaeozoology, such as the fragmentation of bone remains, the lack of diagnostic anatomical criteria or the transformation of organic remains during operational chains. The PepT*ID project will develop this method within the consortium, and will address a number of scientific issues facing the partner laboratories, such as 1) distinguishing between morphologically similar taxa (caprini, antilopini, cervidae), 2) discriminating between unidentifiable remains, 3) identifying the animal origin of materials used by past societies to manufacture objects, and 4) ensuring the reliability of isotopic reference frames. The PepT*ID project, which is both diachronic and interdisciplinary, is also intended to generate a strong structuring effect within the host institute by offering workshops (English/French) for PhD students and master's students, thus contributing to the attractiveness of the training courses. The overall strategic objective is to initiate the development of new expertise as part of an Internationally-oriented Research dynamic (possibly leading to an application for a European Union grant).

Partner(s):

• Laboratoire Archéologie des sociétés méditerranéennes (ASM - Montpellier)
• Tunisian National Heritage Institute (INP)
• Marseille Proteomics Laboratory (MaP - Marseille)
• Urgonia Museum (Orgon)

The Epi2DAP project focuses on the automatic recognition of letterforms engraved on Cherchell's ancient inscriptions. With LIS expertise, processing will be applied to 2,000 digitized images from the CCJ photo library and the EpiCherchell Open Access database, to confirm and refine the dates proposed by epigraphists.

The establishment of a precise chronology based on character shapes, forms used and the evolution of wording, using a batch of archaeologically dated inscriptions, will enable us to anchor all the inscriptions in their historical context and thus enrich the history of the area. This attempt at unsupervised chronological serialization, applied to these unique and technically heterogeneous ancient images, will provide an "objective" classification of the writings, which will be submitted to the expertise of EpiCherchell epigraphists and specialists with a view to programmed publications.

A formalism for representing and querying the information produced will be studied. The aim will be to express the spatio-temporal relationships between inscriptions, and to integrate the analyses produced by HISOMA into the "Text Encoding Initiative" (XML/TEI) format. This innovative process will constitute a study model applicable to other corpora and scripts, and will serve as the basis for the Internationally doctoral workshop on digital epigraphy.

Partner(s):

• History and Sources of Ancient Worlds Laboratory (HISOMA - Lyon)