New database of Swedish archaeological research in Greece
9 January 2017
In a recently completed project at the Swedish Institute in Athens, materials from more than a hundred years of Swedish archaeological research in Greece has been made available through the database PRAGMATA. The database includes, among other things, an extensive photo archive and information about a unique archaeological collection which is managed by Museum Gustavianum at Uppsala University.
Swedish archaeologists worked in Greece long before the Swedish Institute in Athens in 1975 was given permission to conduct its own excavations. The documentation from these early excavations often ended up in private archives and the recovered materials were separated to different museums and archaeological storages in Greece and Sweden, where the absence of systematic records have complicated researching the materials.
To increase the availability of the source material and improve the opportunities for transdisciplinary research the PRAGMATA database was created, with researchers and students as the primary target group. Within the project, a large part of the archaeological materials have now been catalogued, organised and digitised. Additionally, previously existing databases and other digital information have been converted to a modern database format and incorporated in PRAGMATA. All documentation has been catalogued and stored in accordance with Swedish archiving standards at the Swedish Institute in Athens where it can be consulted by researchers.
“A serious issue that the Swedish Institute in Athens has been battling for decades, namely not having access to documentation from many archaeological projects and/or not being able to connect this information to available materials, is now finally solved. I look forward to increased research on Swedish excavations in Greece,” says Arto Penttinen, Director of the Swedish Institute in Athens.
PRAGMATA is a result of the infrastructure project “Arkiv och databas över svensk arkeologisk forskning i Grekland” at the Swedish Institute in Athens. The project has been funded by the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences and co-funded by Uppsala University Museum, the Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University and the Swedish Institute in Athens.
The structures of the older databases has been preserved in PRAGMATA to enable researchers with knowledge of old databases to conduct specific searches, while other users are able to make more general searches.
“We have used modern database technology and an advanced search engine to make this very complex material searchable and to enable a flexible visualisation of the data,” says Hans Liss, systems architect and database developer for PRAGMATA.
PRAGMATA contains information about archaeological materials, storage, contextual information, photos and links to partly scanned and annotated documentation which directly connects different sources which would otherwise be hard to find. The parts of the documentation which have previously been unavailable, brittle or hard to connect to the excavated materials have been prioritised. The intention for the future is to further grow PRAGMATA with material from all of the Swedish Mediterranean institutes.
Link to the database: https://pragmata.sia.uu.se/pragmata
Awaiting permission from the Greek Ministry of Culture, only the material from the Asine collection at Uppsala University is currently searchable. The digitized material stored in Greece will become available pending permission.
News
-
The VR game that takes you to medieval Visby
14 augusti 2020
Using a VR helmet, you can try your hand at archery in 14th century Visby. This new VR game has been developed by the game company Disir, which was founded by a game developer and three archaeologists, of which two research at Uppsala University.
-
“The American dilemma is far from resolved”
15 juni 2020
The police violence in Minneapolis that resulted in the death of George Floyd has once again thrust relations between black and white Americans onto the agenda, a dilemma that will most likely play a central role in this autumn’s presidential elec...
-
Social graces and etiquette vital for Carl Linnaeus
04 juni 2020
What would have become of Carl Linnaeus if he had remained single? Would science have missed out on one of its major lodestars without his well-functioning household? And was his son, Carl Linnaeus the Younger, really the ne’er-do-well he was repu...
-
Medieval manuscript fragments acquired
26 maj 2020
A group of fragments of medieval manuscripts has been acquired by Uppsala University Library. Among these there is a fragment related to Saint Bridget of Sweden. This particular fragment may have been written at or owned by the Vadstena Abbey.
-
She studies AI as existential media
30 april 2020
How are we influenced when smart digital assistants, like Siri and Alexa, become part of our homes? And what happens when we begin to track deviating individuals through biometrics? “More research is needed on what it means to be human in a digita...
-
New study reveals unknown side of Astrid Lindgren’s creative process
21 februari 2020
Why did Jonathan Lionheart’s pitch-black hair suddenly turn golden? And how did Master Detective Kalle Blomqvist get his proper name? In the “Astrid Lindgren Code”, literature researcher Malin Nauwerck lifts the lid on some of the literary world’s...
-
History professor given prestigious assignment
22 januari 2020
Maria Ågren, professor of history, has been awarded a distinguished professor grant of SEK 50 million over 10 years by the Swedish Research Council. The council awarded grants totalling some SEK 380 million to eight applicants.
-
Winner of the 2019 Geijer Prize Named
14 januari 2020
The Geijer Prize for history 2019 has been awarded to Mia Kuritzen Löwengart for her doctoral thesis A Matter of Social Urgency: The emergence of a symphony orchestra and concert house in Stockholm, ca. 1890-1926 and Hedvig Widmalm for her doctora...
-
Legendary runestone bears witness to climate anxiety 1,200 years ago
08 januari 2020
After more than 1,000 years, one of the greatest mysteries of the early Viking Age, the Rök runestone which bears the world’s longest runic inscription, appears to have been solved. According to four Swedish researchers, the puzzling inscription h...
-
Martin Henriksson Holmdahl Prize goes to Afaf Doleeb and Patricia Lorenzoni
21 november 2019
The Martin Henriksson Holmdahl Prize is Uppsala University’s foremost award for contributions to the promotion of human rights and liberty. This year’s prize is shared by graduate student Afaf Doleeb and researcher Patricia Lorenzoni for their com...
-
Large-scale cadastral maps on parchment digitised
08 november 2019
Uppsala University Archives holds a large collection of hand-drawn seventeenth century maps on parchment. These maps are of significant historical value and a valuable source of information on the University’s agricultural properties at the time.
-
New Honorary Doctors Appointed at Uppsala University
21 oktober 2019
The nine faculties at Uppsala University have decided on who they wish to appoint as honorary doctors this academic year. The new honorary doctors include researchers in fields as diverse as string theory, maternal healthcare, evolutionary biology...
-
Excavation documentation from Labraunda digitised
21 oktober 2019
Uppsala University Library's part of the project Mötesplats Medelhavet ("Labraunda") - a research platform for digitised archaeological collections and archives at the Swedish institutes in Athens, Rome and Istanbul, is now being started. The aim ...
-
Aristocratic family trees became scientific model
01 oktober 2019
Before the French Revolution, family trees were reserved for the feudal upper classes, who used them to consolidate their social status. While feudalism broke down and family trees lost their old roles, the trees gained new functions as scientific...
-
Uppsala philosopher elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
19 september 2019
Folke Tersman, professor of practical philosophy at Uppsala University, has been elected as a member of the class for humanities and for outstanding services to science at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
-
Johan Ihre’s dissertations now in digital form.
06 september 2019
Johan Ihre (1707-1780) was professor of Rethoric and Politics at Uppsala University for 42 years. During this time he managed no less than 453 dissertations, the theses of the time. These dissertations are currently a widely used source material i...
-
Sustainable urbanisation requires collaboration
10 juni 2019
On Sunday, 30 June, six seminars on sustainability and urbanisation focusing on India and Sweden will take place in Almedalen. To find out more, we talked to Swaminathan Ramanathan, visiting research fellow, and Owe Ronström, professor of ethnolog...
-
Races for women play an important role
06 maj 2019
Participating in a race for women plays an important role for women and increases self-confidence among participants. Women aim to perform as well as they can, and they place most emphasis on their physical performance, despite the organisers’ oft...
-
Award for research and teaching on the Holocaust
11 april 2019
Tomislav Dulić, Senior Lecturer in History and Director of the Hugo Valentin Centre, has been awarded the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award 2019.
-
Diplomatic wives’ political clout often overlooked
07 mars 2019
Many 20th-century accounts of international relations and diplomacy often leave out the role of women. Diplomats’ wives were not officially employed, but diplomacy was frequently based on couples working together.