by Steve Platt

Exhausted the contents of this site? Ever wondered what else there is about archaeology on the web? This guide contains all you need to get you started. The following articles first appeared in Trench One, the Time Team Club magazine, which publishes regular guides to what’s out there. There is also a section on internet news groups and other web links.

Trench One 5: From landscape to Netscape
Trench One 6: Written in stone
Trench One 7: Save our heritage
Trench One 8: Game on
Trench One 9: Time Team on the web
Trench One 10: The great Barbie hoax
Trench One 11: Studying archaeology on the web
Trench One 12: Magical history tour: schools resources on the web

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From landscape to Netscape

From Trench One 5

I'm standing on the altar stone at Stonehenge watching the shadows change as the sun rises over the eastern horizon. I've already spent the night here wandering freely among the stones, with the occasional sidetrack to visit other archaeological sites nearby. Now I’m about to try to climb on top of the heel stone to see what the view is like from there.

No, this is not an archaeologist’s nightmare. Nor have I had to sneak over the fence and into the site at dead of night for fear of discovery. There are no fences – and English Heritage, far from discouraging such open access, is actively promoting it.

For this is Virtual Stonehenge, located not on Salisbury Plain but an internet website. And if the graphics are not of the quality that has come to be expected by players of modern computer games, the experience of wandering unchallenged through the historic structure (with a choice of nine different eras to visit and the ability to watch the sun and moon rise in each of them) is still one that will appeal to anyone interested in ancient monuments and archaeology. The website (reached via www.english-heritage.org.uk) also contains information on every aspect of the development of Stonehenge, starting with the first evidence of activity around 8,500–6,700 BC – four pits, possibly used for totem poles – and concluding with English Heritage’s future plans for the site. (Update 13/07/00: The Virtual Stonehenge is not currently available, although an enhanced, improved version is promised – see below.)

Archaeology on the internet is booming. You can take virtual tours now of virtually any major archaeological site you choose. At guardians.net/egypt/egol1.htm you can visit the pyramids of Giza or Saqqara, cruise down the Nile looking at various antiquities along the way, or marvel at the 360-degree view of the tomb of Seti I in the Valley of Kings. At www.culture.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/gvpda-d.htm you can take a trip around the paleolithic cave paintings of Lascaux and Chauvet, in France. The latter, only discovered in 1994, contains more than 400 paintings and engravings of animals dating from around 30,000 BC, some of which, together with a map of the cave, are reproduced in fine detail on this website. And at the UNESCO World Heritage site at www.unesco.org/whc/nwhc/pages/sites/main.htm you can take your pick from entering the second courtyard of the Forbidden City in Beijing, visiting the ancient temple of Ta Prohm in Angkor, Cambodia, wandering around the ancient streetscape of Naples, founded by the Greeks in 470, or taking a close look at the wonderful wall paintings in one of the excavated houses of Pompeii.

The nature and quality of these virtual visits is variable. Some, like the Virtual Stonehenge, are all-singing, all-dancing cyber experiences put together in collaboration with leading companies in the field (in this case, Intel and Superscape Virtual Reality). Others, not necessarily any less interesting as a result, are the work of enthusiastic amateurs. One such, with a simple point-and-click aerial photograph to provide information about the site, is that of the Butser Iron Age farm in Hampshire, at www.skcldv.demon.co.uk/iafintro.htm. Just watch where you point the cursor, though: there are a lot of places on the photo that only yield the message, 'Sorry, you’ve hit the bit that’s just a patch of grass or something about as interesting.'

(The main Virtual Stonehenge facility has now been removed as Intel, who provided it, are updating their website. A new, enhanced Virtual Stonehenge is promised for the summer of 2000. In the meantime, a copy of the original is available at www.stonehenge-avebury.net/V-R/vr.html where a Virtual Avebury is also promised for the future.)

Another 'amateur' website, although the sheer scale and quality of its production demands a grander description, is www.stonepages.com. Created and maintained by two megalith enthusiasts, Paolo Arosio and Diego Meozzi, this contains photographs and information about 288 archaeological sites they have visited over the last ten years. They are currently working on adding the photos and descriptions of a further 150 monuments that they haven’t yet had time to put on the website.

The whole Stonepages site is a labour of love, updated regularly, with high-definition pictures, informative text, news from the world of archaeology and enough links to related websites to keep even the most avid web-surfer active from now until the stones erode away. Arosio and Meozzi allow free use of all their material, including the photographs, for educational or non-profit purposes. The duo also produce a Stonepages computer CD containing the whole website and run a small online ‘shop’, which helps fund their efforts. For fans of ancient stone monuments, there is no better site anywhere on the web.

For those with a more general interest in archaeology, or seeking a starting point from which to search for information on a particular subject, the Council for British Archaeology website (www.britarch.ac.uk) is perhaps the best ‘gateway’. As well as hosting the CBA’s Internet Archaeology online journal, British Archaeology magazine (all articles from which are posted within two months of their paper publication) and the CBA Briefing information listings, this site also provides an extensive press cuttings service, reports of everything of relevance to archaeology said in parliament and information on fieldwork opportunities, events, exhibitions, courses, awards, research, new books, occasional papers and ongoing projects. There are links here to every university archaeology department in the UK (and many more worldwide), all the major organisations with an interest in archaeology and the CBA’s own education resources directory, archaeology data service and e-mail directory. It’s also the place to join the Britarch e-mail discussion list or search its message archive.

Another useful resource is the Current Archaeology website (www.archaeology.co.uk). As well as providing selected articles from Current Archaeology magazine, this is home to the Current Archaeology Directory of British Archaeology, which lists more than 700 archaeological organisations, with addresses and telephone numbers. Another database, based on the magazine’s ‘Touching the Past’ supplement, supplies information on some 60 or so sites where volunteers are accepted on digs or other archaeological work.

As an example of the way in which the web is now being utilised for educational purposes – and how it can complement the written word – it is worth visiting Kevin Greene’s site at the University of Newcastle (www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/kevin.greene/wintro/index.htm). This contains an online companion to his book Archaeology: An Introduction (Routledge 1996). Chapter by chapter (and at times almost paragraph by paragraph), Greene provides links to other websites providing further information. In chapter two, for example, when he discusses medieval attitudes to antiquity, he refers to the historicity of the bible. This links to a statement on the subject by the Smithsonian’s Department of Anthropology (www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/9156/ssotb.htm to link to it direct), which in turn links to a related discussion of Noah’s ark and a bibliography of further reading. (The more general British and Irish Archaeological Bibliography can be found online at www.britarch.ac.uk/biab)

By now, if you’ve been pursuing many of these links, you will have dug deep into the vast pit that is archaeology on the internet. (One simple search in the course of researching this article yielded 49,000 web pages.) But you will still only have scratched the surface of the huge quantity of material that is out there. Uncovering it can be as arduous a process as any archaeological dig. So, in coming issues of Trench One, I will be exploring some of the hidden – and not so hidden – quarters of the world wide archaeological web. You can let me know if you come across anything that may be of interest by e-mail to timeteam@channel4.com (mark your e-mail for the attention of Steve Platt). Keep digging!