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About Arches for JU Excavations

Arches for JU Excavations is designed to be the digital foundation of your project, ready to be set up the moment you break ground at a new site.

Built upon the powerful, open-source Arches Project framework, it acts as a comprehensive, all-in-one environment tailored specifically for the realities of archaeological fieldwork. The system comes with its own pre-configured, specialized data models, integrated mapping, and intuitive upload workflows ensuring that complex field data entry is as seamless and effortless as possible from day one.

Core Pillars of the Application

Ontology-Driven Data Models

To guarantee semantic richness and global standardization, we developed a custom archaeological data model strictly adhering to the CIDOC CRM (v7.1.3) ontology, including the CRMarchaeo, CRMgeo, and CRMdig extensions. The system is populated with tailored resource models reflecting real-world archeological entities (such as Trenches, Contexts, and Special Finds), allowing researchers to accurately map physical excavations to digital archives without losing semantic meaning.

Intuitive Data Entry Workflows

Archaeological data entry shouldn't require a computer science degree. We replaced standard database forms with a custom set of guided, step-by-step workflows to streamline the upload process. Whether you are importing Total Station data, assigning a local coordinate system, or uploading a 3D model, these simplified forms ensure that complex data is captured consistently and effortlessly directly in the field.

Integrated Spatial Mapping

Advanced geospatial analysis is built directly into Arches for JU Excavations. Our custom Map Plugin allows archaeologists to visualize and customize the appearance of resources overlaid on top of self-uploaded, high-resolution basemaps (such as aerial drone imagery). You can interact with and visualize spatial data in a continuous 2D MapLibre-based workspace without needing to switch to a separate GIS application.

The Mare Nostrum LAB Platform

This application was developed as part of the Mare Nostrum LAB Platform, a collaborative initiative uniting researchers and developers from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and the Warsaw University of Technology.