Modelling Archaeological Buildings Using CIDOC-CRM and Its Extensions: The Case of Fuwairit, Qatar

This paper explores the use of CIDOC CRM and its extensions (CRMba, CRMarchaeo) to represent archaeological buildings that have been studied and interpreted by archaeologists during their work in the field. These archaeological observations and reflections usually appear in archaeological reports containing text and visual representations, such as images and photographs, plans and drawings, and maps. For our approach (case study), we used the recent archaeological excavations and other heritage works of the Origins of Doha and Qatar Project in Fuwairit, Qatar. We investigate, explore and review issues related to the application of classes and properties as they appear in the latest versions of the aforementioned models, i.e. CIDOC CRM, and CRMba. We focus on archaeological building construction, on specific building components and materials, on the visual representations of archaeological buildings as well as on issues of archaeological buildings' chronology and buildings' information provenance. The proposed data model contributes towards an automated system for archaeological buildings representations, documentation, and heritage data integration.