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Classical Art and Architecture
The diverse world of classical art and architecture is well represented onl<strong>in</strong>e, and this section briefly
surveys a number of specific digital projects. One impressive website, the “Ancient Theatre Archive: A
Virtual Reality Tour of Greek and Roman Theatre Architecture,” 274 has been created by Thomas G.
H<strong>in</strong>es of Whitman College and is an excellent resource that can be used to study ancient Greek and
Roman theatres. This website provides both a list and graphical map overview for navigat<strong>in</strong>g through
images of classical theatres. Each theatre page <strong>in</strong>cludes an extensive history, a time l<strong>in</strong>e, and a virtual
tour that <strong>in</strong>cludes panorama images and Quicktime movies. A recent addition is a table of “Greek and
Roman Theatre Specification” that <strong>in</strong>cludes extensive details on each theatre, <strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g its ancient
name, modern name, location, date, width, capacity, renovation dates, and summary. While this table
can be sorted by type of data, it would also have been useful to hyperl<strong>in</strong>k the theatres to their
descriptive pages. This website is an excellent educational resource, but it does not seem,
unfortunately, that any of the extensive historical data compiled, images, or video data can be
downloaded <strong>in</strong> any k<strong>in</strong>d of standard format or reused.
Many websites are dedicated to the architecture of <strong>in</strong>dividual build<strong>in</strong>gs or cities. For example, Trajan’s
Column, 275 hosted by McMaster University, is dedicated to the exploration of the column of Trajan as
a sculptural monument. This website <strong>in</strong>cludes <strong>in</strong>troductory essays, a database of images, and useful
<strong>in</strong>dexes for the website. Although more than 10 years old, this website stands up well as an educational
resource and, even more important, provides technical details on its creation and all the source code
used <strong>in</strong> its creation. 276
Another useful tool for brows<strong>in</strong>g across a number of classical art objects is the Perseus Art &
Archaeology Browser, 277 which allows the user to browse the digital library’s image collection,
<strong>in</strong>clud<strong>in</strong>g co<strong>in</strong>s, vases, sculptures, sites, gems, and build<strong>in</strong>gs. The descriptions and images have been
produced <strong>in</strong> collaboration with a large number of museums, <strong>in</strong>stitutions, and scholars. In one
<strong>in</strong>terest<strong>in</strong>g related project, 3-D models were developed from the photographs of vases <strong>in</strong> this collection
and were used to build a “3D Vase Museum” that users could browse (Shiaw et al. 2004). Although the
entire collection of art objects can be searched, the major form of access to the Art & Archaeology
collection is provided through a brows<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>terface, where the user must pick an artifact type such as a
co<strong>in</strong>, a property of that artifact (such as material), and a property of that artifact type (such as bronze);
this then leads to a list of images. 278 Each catalog entry <strong>in</strong>cludes descriptive <strong>in</strong>formation,
photographer, credits, and the source of the object and photograph. In addition, each image <strong>in</strong> the Art
& Archaeology Browser has a stable URL for l<strong>in</strong>k<strong>in</strong>g. All of the source code used to create this
brows<strong>in</strong>g environment is available for download as part of the Perseus Hopper. 279
The largest research effort <strong>in</strong> mak<strong>in</strong>g classical art available onl<strong>in</strong>e is CLAROS (Classical Art Research
Onl<strong>in</strong>e Services), 280 a major <strong>in</strong>ternational <strong>in</strong>terdiscipl<strong>in</strong>ary research <strong>in</strong>itiative that launched its first
public research <strong>in</strong>terface <strong>in</strong> May of 2011. Some further technical details on this project are discussed
later <strong>in</strong> this paper, but this section will consider some of the larger research questions addressed by
CLAROS and described <strong>in</strong> Kurtz et al. (2009). This project is led by Oxford University and hosted by
the Oxford e-Research Center, and its current “data web” <strong>in</strong>tegrates the collections of Arachne
274 http://www.whitman.edu/theatre/theatretour/home.htm
275 http://cheiron.mcmaster.ca/~trajan/
276 http://cheiron.mcmaster.ca/~trajan/tech.html
277 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/artifactBrowser
278 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/artifactBrowserobject=Co<strong>in</strong>&field=Material&value=Bronze
279 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/opensource/download
280 http://explore.clarosnet.org/XDB/ASP/clarosHome/