ArchAIDE: Archaeological Automatic Interpretation and Documentation of cEramics

The ArchAIDE project (archaide.eu) is funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and has developed a new app that aims to improve the practice of pottery recognition in archaeology, using the latest automatic image recognition technology. Every day, archaeologists are working to discover and tell stories around objects from the past, investing considerable time, effort and funding to identify and characterise individual finds. Pottery is of fundamental importance for the comprehension and dating of archaeological contexts, and for understanding the dynamics of production, trade flows, and social interactions. Today, this characterisation and classification of ceramics is carried out manually, through the expertise of specialists and the use of analogue catalogues held in archives and libraries. The goal of ArchAIDE is to optimise and economise this process, making knowledge accessible wherever archaeologists are working. ArchAIDE supports the classification and interpretation work of archaeologists (during both fieldwork and post-excavation analysis) with an innovative app for tablets and smartphones, designed to be an essential tool for archaeologists. Pottery fragments are photographed, their characteristics sent to a comparative collection, which activates the image recognition system, resulting in a response with all relevant information linked, and ultimately stored, within a database that allows sharing online. The system currently supports shape-based recognition of Terra Sigillata and Roman Amphorae, and decoration-based recognition of Majolica of Montelupo, as proof-of-concept