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Always in the Field: Introducing the WebDig AppOpen Data Open Materials

Nathan T. Arrington, Mattia D’Acri, Dimitris Baloukidis and Marina Tasaklaki

Cite this as: Arrington, N.T., D'Acri, A., Baloukidis, D. and Tasaklaki, M. 2026 Always in the Field: Introducing the WebDig App, Internet Archaeology 71. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.71.13

Summary

Houses and roads uncovered during the Molyvoti, Thrace, Archaeological Project (Greece). © Ephorate of Antiquities of Rhodope, Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic
Houses and roads uncovered during the Molyvoti, Thrace, Archaeological Project (Greece). © Ephorate of Antiquities of Rhodope, Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic

Amongst the digital tools that projects use to gather data in the field, an application created for use in the Athenian Agora excavations has gained traction in recent decades: iDig. It is used on multiple projects in Greece, and beyond, with positive results. This article describes some of the strengths of the program but also the limitations when it comes to post-season study and publication, which the authors encountered on the Molyvoti, Thrace, Archaeological Project. In response, we created an open-source, web-based application, WebDig, which we present here. WebDig mirrors the content and functionality of iDig in order to facilitate collaboration among specialists and to complement print publication.

  • Google Scholar
  • Keywords: archaeology, digital recording, open access, collaboration, publication, iDig, Aegean Thrace, GitHub, open-source
  • Accepted: May 2026. Published: July 2026
  • Funding: This publication was funded by the Department of Art and Archaeology and the Office of the Dean of the Faculty, Princeton University
  • PDF download (a simplified, printer-friendly version of this article. Use the Full Text link below for the primary publication)

Corresponding author: Nathan T. ArringtonORCID logo
[email protected]
Princeton University ROR logo

Mattia D’AcriORCID logo
[email protected]
Princeton University ROR logo

Dimitris Baloukidis
[email protected]

Marina Tasaklaki
[email protected]
Ephorate of Antiquities of Rhodope-Greece

Full text

Figure 1: WebDig landing page with the main tools indicated. © Ephorate of Antiquities of Rhodope, Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic

Figure 2: Example of a user zooming into a space and selecting all the artifacts. © Ephorate of Antiquities of Rhodope, Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic

Figure 3: Example of a selected Item on WebDig as a Guest user, showing details about the item and the locus where it was found. © Ephorate of Antiquities of Rhodope, Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic

Figure 4: The Advanced Search tool. © Ephorate of Antiquities of Rhodope, Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic

Figure 5: Example of an advanced search on WebDig. The user has searched for all coins issued by Maroneia in Space XVI © Ephorate of Antiquities of Rhodope, Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic

Figure 6: Selection of an Item (C213) after advanced search as a Guest user. © Ephorate of Antiquities of Rhodope, Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic

Figure 7: Selection of an Item (C213) after advanced search as a Registered user. © Ephorate of Antiquities of Rhodope, Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic

Arrington, N.T., Terzopoulou, D., Tasaklaki, M. and Tartaron, T.F. (eds) 2025 The Molyvoti, Thrace, Archaeological Project 1: Landscape, Architecture, and Material Culture, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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