RESEARCH
The ARWA International Association For Archaeological Research in Western & Central Asia is proud to contribute with its support to the launch and development of two major international research projects:
ARCANE v. 1 – v. 2
that is continued (v. 1) and extended (v. 2) to further regions (Arabian Peninsula, Southern Caucasus & Eastern Anatolia), 3100-1900 BCE
and
ARCISCA
a new and ambitious ARCANE-like extension to the East: Eastern Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Western India, Western Central Asia, 3500 – 1500 BCE.
Extension of the ARCISCA Programme
ULAT (Universal Lexicon of Archaeological Terms) is an ARWA long-term and participative project. It aims at providing illustrated and multilingual dictionaries pertaining to the various areas of knowledge useful to students, advanced learners, young and experienced researchers involved in the study on the past of the Eastern Mediterranean, Western, South and Central Asia. Languages will be those of the existing bibliography and the countries covered by ARWA. Areas of knowledge will include such domains as architecture, ceramics, visual arts, numismatic, epigraphy, etc. ULAT will achieve its goal if it offers to a wider community a tool capable of supporting learning and research.
ASFAR long-term Project is not aimed to impose anything, but to implement basic standards, and might be considered as a handbook of field registration and data recording.
ASFAR will be a proposed basic registration system linked with GIS mapping and relational DB.
Each system has its good points and a number of lacunae. We will try to retain the best features. We will not impose procedures, but advise coherent ways.
This is why ASFAR should not be normative while keeping a pedagogical component.
It can be proposed at progressive and optional levels of complexity, but the most basic one should at least offer documentation accessible and understandable by every professional.
It should allow specific developments proper to the local conditions and to the team projects.
Harmonization is essential, uniformization would be illusory and dangerous. The big challenge will be introducing flexibility, but this is needed.
Both projects — ULAT and ASFAR — will be managed by a coherent and multinational team under ARWA label.
The Archaeology and Methodology ARWA LGs will pave the way to the first steps of these ambitious endeavours.