Museum Information Systems: CIDOC data model implementation in the ArchTerra project

The paper summarizes the first stage of the work for development of a virtual archaeological museum carried under the EU Copernicus ArchTerra project. It describes a new implementation of a database with museum information after the CIDOC standard. The system reported here is developed using Oracle CASE methodology and is currently implemented as an Oracle 8i database. The data model it is based on enhances the CIDOC object-oriented data model in several important directions for realistic museum data processing, such as artefact duplication, conservation and Internet browsing. It clearly separates the domain ontology from the specific domain knowledge through the concept of a terminological thesuarus, thus making it applicable to other kind of museum information systems, e.g. in ethnography, natural sciences, etc. The paper discuss also future directions of further development, especially in the direction of data exchange between CIDOC compliant databases containing information related to cultural heritage management