The Al-Hiba Publication Project: A New Approach to the Post-Excavation Analysis of Unpublished Excavations

Citation:

Gabriel H. Pizzorno, Darren P. Ashby, Henry M. Bernberg, and Steve Renette. 2012. “The Al-Hiba Publication Project: A New Approach to the Post-Excavation Analysis of Unpublished Excavations.” In Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research.
PDF13.33 MB
The Al-Hiba Publication Project: A New Approach to the Post-Excavation Analysis of Unpublished Excavations

Abstract:

At the time of Donald Hansen’s untimely death in 2005 the results of his groundbreaking excavations at al-Hiba, the site of ancient Lagash, remained largely unpublished. In order to prepare the site’s final reports for publication, Holly Pittman of the University of Pennsylvania, in cooperation with Edward Ochsenschlager, started the Al-Hiba Publication Project with the support of the Shelby White-Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publications. The records documenting Hansen’s excavations consist of thousands of photographs, data sheets, notebooks, drawings, and plans. During the past four years these records have been digitized and incorporated into a sophisticated database that stores and correlates digital versions of the materials and offers tools to manage and analyse the data. A team at the University of Pennsylvania is now at work studying these data and preparing final site reports. This poster is intended to offer a glimpse of several aspects of our methodological approach, outline some of the problems we have found, and share our progress with the academic community. We hope that this platform can serve to communicate with other scholars who have faced, or are facing, the challenge of publishing materials from old excavations.

Last updated on 04/17/2016