The virtual horn: digital strategies for the documentation and dissemination of the archaeology of the horn of Africa

Abstract

The StateHorn project aims to understand, from a multidisciplinary perspective, the origin and consolidation of the medieval Muslim states of the Horn of Africa, to compare its stability between the 11th and the 16th centuries, in contrast to the current tensions throughout the region. To deal with a complex scenario that includes several countries, different academic traditions and languages, the StateHorn project has developed a series of strategies and tools to document and integrate archaeological and archival information into resources. This paper presents three of these strategies used in our research. The first one is the Ibapp Beta software, a mobile application designed by one of the members of the project to collect field data from different contexts, linking photographs, GPS data and archaeological information. The second one is the virtual reconstruction, applied to the case study of a medieval mosque from Somaliland using old archive photographs, photogrammetry and archaeological and ethnographic information. Finally, a third strategy will address the reconstruction of the plan for the town of Amud, a medieval town now disappeared but where some old aerial photographs of the 1930s. Combined with orthophotos and satellite images, it has been possible to reconstruct the urban layout of this important but extremely damaged site.