VIRTUAL LIBRARY OF ARTIFACTS

Our Virtual Artifacts Library (VAL) is an archaeological/artistic artifacts database which has been done with two main aims:

1. To generate quantitative data to read History from materiality.
   Introduced data allows a historical study based on the amount of objects represented that proceed from different monastic places of the past and that were created in different Mediterranean territories. Study the movements of this objects allows us to build hypotheses by asking who is the receiver and where was it found. Thus, we can study, for example, what volume of material were consumed in a certain space, why was that object manufactured, what was the production site, or which territories were connected at different historical moments.

2. To divulge History from the digital presentation of these objects.
   These digital presentations allow the viewer watch the objects included in the library, which were used with different purposes within monastic spaces. The user can watch an ancient object preserved in a museum collection, as well as watch the virtual 3D reconstruction and learn the appearance of them, the past spaces and scenes.
   To carry this out, data sheets has been prepared with different information: the museum reserve where the objects has been documented, the chronology, the number of objects of the same type found on the same place…
   Finally, the artifact has been graphically represented with the photograph the original artifact, the 2D archaeological drawing, the “ideal” 3D virtualization and a drawing exemplifying the use of the object.

This database was created thanks to the interdisciplinary collaboration of a medievalist research team.