• DARIAH EU
• Publicationsclose
• 2017-2021close
• AT close
• CA close
• English close

Abstract. The ancient mining landscape of Schwaz/Brixlegg in the Tyrol, Austria witnessed mining from prehistoric times to modern times creating a first order cultural landscape when it comes to one of the most important inventions in human history: the production of metal. In 1991 a part of this landscape was lost due to an enormous landslide that reshaped part of the mountain. With our work we want to propose a digital workflow to create a 3D semantic representation of this ancient mining landscape with its mining structures to preserve it for posterity. First, we define a conceptual model to integrate the data. It is based on the CIDOC CRM ontology and CRMgeo for geometric data. To transform our information sources to a formal representation of the classes and properties of the ontology we applied semantic web technologies and created a knowledge graph in RDF (Resource Description Framework). Through the CRMgeo extension coordinate information of mining features can be integrated into the RDF graph and thus related to the detailed digital elevation model that may be visualized together with the mining structures using Geoinformation systems or 3D visualization tools. The RDF network of the triple store can be queried using the SPARQL query language. We created a snapshot of mining, settlement and burial sites in the Bronze Age. The results of the query were loaded into a Geoinformation system and a visualization of known bronze age sites related to mining, settlement and burial activities was created.

The rapid development of new digital tools and infrastructures in recent years and their application to a variety of disciplines has transformed how we store, access and retrieve information available to us. This has also shaped the ways how knowledge in a diverse cultural context is presented, used and re-used. The exploreAT! project builds upon not only Austrian, but also European cultural identity from the aspect of language, in particular dialects. Unlike standard languages, dialects are in times of globalization under considerable threat of diminishing, and this ultimately poses a risk to the intangible record that is language and through which a history of tangible culture is expressed. In this paper we elaborate on the possibilities digital means and the infrastructure and services of the EGI-Engage project offer in revealing and giving access to unique traditional cultural knowledge contained in a non-standard language resource on the example of the Bavarian dialects in Austria (DBÖ). Digital tools and services allow our heterogeneous corpus of data to be virtually exploited and preserved. The flexibility of the internet allow these data to become not only visible, but searchable and extractable. Through the digitization efforts, and use of European infrastructures the hidden cultural narratives within the data can be uncovered, enriched and shared for the benefit of knowledge society.

International audience