“Trajan's Column: Building a WWW Image-Database”
Geoffrey
Rockwell
McMaster University, Canada
Gretchen
Umholtz
McMaster University, Canada
Michele
George
McMaster University, Canada
Martin
Beckmann
McMaster University, Canada
Paul
Barrette
McMaster University, Canada
One of the challenges when designing image databases in the humanities is to
provide interfaces that are drawn from the object being represented rather than
from the technology used. In this paper we will discuss an image database of
over 400 images that was built by a team of graduate students and faculty at
McMaster University. The images relate to carving technique on Trajan's Column,
one of the most extensive and important surviving sculptural monuments of
ancient Rome. In addition to various text-based search tools, we also created a
cartoon sketch interface to the entire frieze of Trajan's Column that allows
users to move around a virtual column to access the images and to see them in
narrative context. This virtual column is an example of a content driven
interface to an image collection that is based on the subject matter of the
collection.
Trajan, Roman emperor from AD 98 to 117, has generally been remembered as a
'good' emperor. A gifted general, he was close to his soldiers and led them on a
number of campaigns which substantially expanded the Roman empire. Two of these
campaigns, the first and second Dacian wars, are commemorated on Trajan's
column: a 100 foot tall marble column decorated with a continuous, upwardly
spiraling, sculpted frieze. The scenes on this frieze are an invaluable source
of information about many aspects of Roman military practice, imperial ideology,
and also sculptural technique. The column still stands today in its original
place in the Forum of Trajan in Rome, but, due to its great height, visibility
of individual scenes from the ground is quite limited; students and scholars
must often rely on old photographs and plaster casts for the study of many
details.
In 1997 a team of graduate students and faculty at McMaster University were given
access to a unique collection of over 400 slides taken by Peter Rockwell and
Claudio Martini when Trajan's Column was being restored and had scaffolding
around it. The images are primarily of details that show carving technique. In
addition we were given access to a series of cartoon sketches of the entire
column that show the narrative of the frieze. The challenge was to create an
image database that would provide a context for these photographs so that
scholars and students of Roman art could use these resources easily. The WWW
site is located at <http://cheiron.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~trajan/>.
In this paper we will do the following:
- 1. Discuss the background of the
project.
This project was initiated by Peter Rockwell who was looking for a venue for making his collection of slides available to the research and education community. While he had published on the column, the full collection of images on which his research was based could not be published economically. A WWW site seemed the most effective way to make this collection available. The team was limited by the fact that the slide collection was in Rome, Italy and could not be removed to Canada for digitization. In this paper we will discuss the steps taken to digitize the images on site and build the database from information gathered by Peter Rockwell as part of his research. - 2. Discuss the technical design of the WWW