The School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, in partnership with the Department of Archaeology, Durham University, and the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester are very pleased to announce a new grant of £2.2m from Arcadia. The three-year grant (2024–2027) will support the continuation of the EAMENA project.
The EAMENA project is dedicated to digitally recording and helping to protect cultural heritage sites in the Middle East and North Africa, threatened by conflict and looting but also urbanization, agricultural development and industries such as mining, and climate change. Arcadia is a charitable foundation that works to protect nature, preserve cultural heritage and promote open access to knowledge. Since 2002 Arcadia has awarded more than $1.2 billion to organizations around the world.
Launched in 2015 with Arcadia’s support, the EAMENA project collaborates with the MarEA maritime archaeology project in Southampton and Ulster Universities. The EAMENA project uses satellite imagery and historic aerial photographs to identify and record archaeological sites across 20 countries from Mauretania to Afghanistan, documenting their conditions, damage and threats. So far, it has created more than 380,000 records, published through an online database which allows to monitor sites under immediate threat. These records are available on an open access basis at https://database.eamena.org/. Working with local partners, the project has established National Heritage Inventories for several countries in the region and provided support for the necessary database management skills.
The new grant will support further documentation, especially within landscapes which have seen major anthropogenic impacts; establishing a sustainable framework for the long-term future of the database, further developing the Arches database to improve and extend accessibility, and improving its capacity for large-scale resource management; continuing to develop Automated Change Detection tools to monitor landscapes and track changes affecting them; and creating an online, open access Heritage Atlas using a large volume of historic maps, aerial and satellite photography we have collected, digitized and geo-corrected.
