ArCOA – Ancient Near Eastern Archives and Collections

ArCOA – A research project involving the study, enhancement and divulgation of the Near Eastern museum collections and archives present in Lombardy and elsewhere in Italy. ArCOA is a joint project of the University of Milan and the Institute of Cultural Heritage Sciences – CNR,  with an interdisciplinary team of Italian archaeologists, assyriologists, museum curators, and IT and multimedia experts, coordinated by Luca Peyronel and Tatiana Pedrazzi. ArCOA cooperates with museums, institutions, and universities, such as the archaeological museums of Como and Milan, the Department of Historical Studies of the University of Turin, and the Musei Reali of Turin for the dissemination in Italy of information concerning ancient cultures of Western Asia. We are implementing an open-source, open-access database for research and a user-friendly website, we are working on the 3-D models of artefacts kept in the museum collections – as well as organizing social engagement and crowd-sourcing activities to increase public awareness of the cultural heritage of the Middle East.