Cite this as: Kecheva, N. 2024 The First Step towards FAIR-ness in Bulgarian Archaeology: the Archaeological Map of Bulgaria in ARIADNE and ARIADNEplus, Internet Archaeology 67. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.67.5
Developments of computer technology and the internet in the new millennium are two of the main reasons for focusing on digital techniques and digitisation in the sciences and humanities, and archaeology is no exception. Digitising existing legacy data is only the first step towards the creation of digital data. Creating easily findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) digital resources requires a lot more work. The National Archaeological Institute with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (NAIM-BAS) was a partner in the ARIADNE (2013-17) and ARIADNEplus (2019-22) projects financed by the European Commission. This participation had two positive outcomes. The first was the experience gained by NAIM-BAS team members in using contemporary European data and becoming familiar with metadata standards following the FAIR principles. The second was the practical aspect. Participation in ARIADNE and ARIADNE plus made information sharing and updating of the archaeological information system 'Archaeological Map of Bulgaria' (AIS AKB) possible. The work process followed the main steps needed for sharing metadata and data in the ARIADNE portal (Bardi et al. 2022).
This part of the article is focused on the development of the 'Archaeological Map of Bulgaria' (AIS AKB) in the new millennium. A brief history is necessary since NAIM-BAS participated in both the ARIADNE and ARIADNEplus projects with data exported from the AIS AKB. A detailed history of the digital archiving of archaeological reports in Bulgaria is beyond the scope of this article, but see a brief summary of the current state of archiving in Bulgaria in Kecheva (2021) and overviews of archiving in other countries in Aspöck and Richards (2023) and Jakobsson et al. (2021, 2023).
The 'Archaeological Map of Bulgaria' has a long history prior to the growth of computer technology and the development of the internet (Нехризов 2014 , Kecheva 2024). It was created as a catalogue/registry of a 'site and monument' type system containing so-called 'registration cards' for the recorded archaeological sites in Bulgaria. The term 'archaeological site' has many different definitions in archaeological projects and publications worldwide (Kecheva 2024). The accepted definition for AIS AKB is the following: a particular topographic place in space where, during different chronological periods, human beings have performed various permanent and/or temporary activities. The AIS AKB information system was created in the 1990s in the DOS operating system, updated in the 2000s in the Windows operating system, and has been accessible through a web application since 2010 (Автоматизирана информационна система 'Археологическа карта на България' 2024). Its accessibility is achieved through an authorised access according to Bulgarian national legislation (Наредба № Н-2 от 6 април 2011 г. за създаване, поддържане и предоставяне на информацията от автоматизирана информационна система 'Археологическа карта на България' (обн. ДВ. бр. 32 от 19 април 2011 г., доп. ДВ. бр. 7 от 23 януари 2024 г.) 2024).
The database that is accessible through the web application is visible as a registry and the registration cards are loaded as a list. More than 25,000 archaeological sites have been recorded in the information system as of September 2024. More than a half of them were recorded on paper forms in the 1990s (approximately 15,000 records). Since it was not possible to use GNSS/GPS devices for archaeological site location during that period, these registration cards were not assigned X and Y coordinates. Instead, the archaeological sites were described and approximate locations labelled on topographic maps, with some being more informative than others (Figure 1).
The web application created in 2010 did not require GPS coordinates for listing the registration cards. However, more recently, in the era of widely used geographic information systems (GIS), the inclusion of GPS coordinates (X and Y) became essential. This resulted in the growing need for full digitisation of the paper forms, including the addition of X and Y coordinates to those that were missing this data. Projects, including ARIADNE, provided the opportunity to execute this task over the course of several years, as explained below.
NAIM-BAS was the only Bulgarian institution involved with the ARIADNE and ARIADNEplus projects. A team of different specialists from NAIM-BAS and beyond participated in the work. ARIADNE was the first European project that addressed the 'Archaeological Map of Bulgaria'. Since NAIM-BAS was one of ARIADNE's 'data-provider' partners, the AIS AKB data to be provided had to be modified in the required way.
The modification workflow included activities done in parallel. Some focused on an AIS AKB update and some followed the description of work of the ARIADNE and ARIADNEplus projects.
The digitisation of the 'Archaeological Map of Bulgaria' legacy data was hard and time-consuming work. The work process included: an inventory of the existing paper registration cards from 1992-2010, division of the registration cards with missing X and Y coordinates between different team members, creation of a standardised spreadsheet for completion (Figure 2), and marking waypoints for the X and Y coordinates of archaeological sites for registration cards that lacked this data. Different sources were used to aid this final process: topographic maps in different scales (from 1:50,000 to 1:5,000), orthophotographs, satellite imagery, cadastral maps, and amateur websites with data for archaeological sites. As a result, in the period 2013-16 all registration cards received X and Y coordinates (Figure 3).
The ARIADNE and ARIADNEplus projects' description of work included sharing metadata and data for 'data providers'. Different work packages covered the preparation of the AIS AKB data. Since AIS AKB still had strict authorised access according to regulatory documents (Наредба № Н-2 от 6 април 2011 г. за създаване, поддържане и предоставяне на информацията от автоматизирана информационна система 'Археологическа карта на България' (обн. ДВ. бр. 32 от 19 април 2011 г., доп. ДВ. бр. 7 от 23 януари 2024 г.) 2024), it was decided that only partial data with modified metadata was going to be shared. For the ARIADNE project, data for 'popular' archaeological sites in Bulgaria was shared. This included fortresses, castles, churches, monasteries, tombs, rock-cut facilities, ancient and medieval towns, and megalithic monuments. Additional descriptions in English were specifically provided for each of these entries. For the ARIADNEplus project, data for large burial mounds and tells was added to the portal. The total number of records in ARIADNEplus was around 2000.
In order to fulfil the requirements for aggregating data (Richards 2023), several work processes were followed. Some of these processes included the mapping of all type, find and facilities terms to the Getty AAT thesaurus as well as the inclusion of all archaeological periods present in Bulgaria in PeriodO. Additional work was done to the two XML exports (defined as one collection (AIS AKB) and many individual resources (archaeological sites)) created from AIS AKB with the shared data. This included modifying and mapping the metadata to the ACDM at first and the AO-Cat ontology later. The CIDOC CRM test mapping in 2016 was also done to the metadata of the original (not modified) AIS AKB registration cards.
The terms used in AIS AKB were mapped to the Getty AAT thesaurus (Art & Architecture Thesaurus® Online 2024). The mapping was done using the W3C's SKOS reference (SKOS Simple Knowledge Organization System Reference 2009) in the first ARIADNE project. The terms were simultaneously translated into English. These included type, finds and facilities sections in the AIS AKB. At this time, the mapping was done in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (Figure 4). Later, in ARIADNEplus, it was possible to execute this action online using the Vocabulary Matching Tool (2024) in the ARIADNEplus Gateway in D4Science (Binding and Tudhope 2024).
The updated chronologies used in AIS AKB were translated into English, defined by years 'before present' (BP) (2000), and included in another Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. The results are visible on the PeriodO website (PeriodO client. ARIADNE Consortium. ARIADNE Data Collection 2015) with spatial coverage 'Bulgaria'. There are 35 in total, and each has a different permalink with description.
The ARIADNE catalogue data model (ACDM) was created during the ARIADNE project (Aloia et al. 2017). It was an extension of the Data Catalog Vocabulary (DCAT 2024). The mapping between the modified metadata of AIS AKB and the ACDM was undertaken in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet using a template (Figure 5). The metadata from AIS AKB included text fields and one-to-one or one-to-many relationships. Thirty-one fields were mapped to the ACDM. Sixteen of them existed originally in AIS AKB and the other 15 were added.
The ACDM was updated to the AO-Cat ontology during the ARIADNEplus project (Felicetti et al. 2023) and the data aggregation pipeline that was followed is published in Bardi et al. 2022. The mapping of the AIS AKB data to the AO-Cat followed a much more user-friendly and clear workflow due to the ARIADNEplus gateway in D4Science, the templates uploaded there such as X3ML Mapping Tool (Mapping Memory Manager (3M) - DYAS 2024, Theodoridou et al. 2010), and the experience gathered in the previous ARIADNE project . Three examples of AIS AKB modified metadata to AO-Cat mapping are shown below. They include:
The files from the latter two examples were later combined into one XML file. Twenty-eight fields were exported for the individual resource XMLs (Figure 7). Thirteen fields from AIS AKB were exported and mapped to twelve of the AO-Cat fields. The data in the other 16 fields from AO-Cat was manually added.
The fields from AIS AKB which were mapped to AO-Cat are as follows:
'Type' field was mapped twice (to =ao_cat_is_about and to ao_cat_has_native_subject). It is important to emphasise that the 'type' and 'chronology' fields in AIS AKB have a one-to-one relationship. In AO-Cat, only one type and its corresponding chronology (best represented) were used per individual record.
The XML for the collection record (the whole AIS AKB as an information system in one XML entry) was also created (Figure 6). The mappings of the XML (collection level and individual resource level) were done using the X3ML Mapping Tool (Mapping Memory Manager (3M) - DYAS 2024), Theodoridou et al. 2010) (Figure 8).
The original metadata of the AIS AKB registration card was mapped to CIDOC CRM as a test in 2016. Some of the fields (30 in total) were first translated into English, then mapped to CIDOC CRM as part of E53_Place target node (Figure 9).
Creation of the geographic information system 'Archaeological Map of Bulgaria' (GIS AKB) started as a side project at the end of 2015 (Kecheva 2019 , 2024 , Географска информационна система „Археологическа карта на България“ 2024). Its development included modification of AIS AKB into a web GIS platform. It turned out that a lot more transformations were applied. Geospatial features were created so that different geospatial data (points, lines, and polygons) can be collected. Registration cards continued to exist, but 'AKB types geographic features' were defined (Figure 10). Additional controlled vocabulary and free text fields were added. Mapping of GIS AKB to CIDOC CRM is yet to be fulfilled.
The example of an individual resource shown in the XML in Figure 7 is visible in the ARIADNE portal (Figure 11).
NAIM-BAS is not the only contributor of data for Bulgaria in the ARIADNE portal. When searching by 'Place' for 'Bulgaria', only two publishers were found: NAIM-BAS and Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. The latter provided data for 'The Role of Culture in Early Expansions of Humans' (ROCEEH) project with data from three caves (Browse / Where - Ariadne portal 2024). Three other institutions have published data for Bulgaria, but their data did not have any 'Place' assigned. These include The International Association for Classical Archaeology (using FastiOnline records) using 'Site/monument' and 'Fieldwork' resource type, Archaeology Data Service (1 record) with 'Fieldwork archive' resource type, and CENIEH (1 record) with 'Fieldwork report' resource type.
The ARIADNE and ARIADNEplus projects offered a lot to the partners: sharing knowledge and experience was the most important benefit. From a practical point of view, the completion of the digitisation of the paper AIS AKB registration cards, mapping of AIS AKB to CIDOC CRM, and beginning to develop the GIS AKB web platform were the most useful and important tasks achieved. The shared metadata and data in the ARIADNE portal allow the FAIR-ness of parts of AIS AKB. Since mapping can be misleading and different researchers can do it individually as they prefer, a lot of thought and work was done to ensure that the shared AIS AKB 'site and monuments' data was as informative and accurate as possible. This was the reason why the metadata needed modification before mapping. Data's findability is easily checked when searching through the ARIADNE portal, but there is still a long road to go. The author's participation in the ARIADNE and ARIADNEplus projects and SEADDA COST Action was essential for gaining experience in the field of standards, metadata mapping, and the first step towards making part of Bulgarian archaeology more FAIR.
I would like to thank all the partners in ARIADNE, ARIADNEplus, and the SEADDA COST Action for their invaluable help when needed. I am thankful especially to J.D. Richards, A. Bardi, C. Binding, A. Felicetti, C. Meghini, E. Ottonello, and M. Theodoridou for their help during the aggregation process.
As a senior expert in the ARIADNE project and a communication manager in the ARIADNEplus project, I would like to thank the contributors from the Bulgarian side including project manager, L. Vagalinski, scientific coordinator, G. Nekhrizov, and the IT expert in both projects, L. Nedyalkov. I would like to express my gratitude to all my colleagues from Bulgaria for all their work in the ARIADNE project (in alphabetical order): A. Aladzhov, A. Andonova, A. Bakamska, D. Bayrakov, K. Boyadzhiev, E. Bozhinova, I. D. Cholakov, K. Chukalev, D. Damyanov, Y. Dimitrova, M. Dyakov, V. Gencheva, A. Grigorov, G. Ivanov, N. Ivanova, P. Leshtakov, A. Nikov (finances), N. Prahov, S. Stoychev, S. Torbatov, Zh. Vasileva, M. Zlatkov, and in the ARIADNEplus project: I. D. Cholakov, K. Chukalev, V. Gencheva, A. Grigorov, G. Ivanov, N. Ivanova, I. Kirilova, P. Leshtakov, A. Nikov (finances), D. Sandeva, J. Tzvetkova, Zh. Vasileva.
The research leading to these results received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement no. 313193, and from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 823914.
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