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GENII PROJECT (J6-4609): REVOLUTIONIZING ROMAN STONE RESEARCH THROUGH EOLITH DATABASE INTEGRATION

Lozić, Edisa

Publisher
Zenodo
DOI
10.5281/zenodo.17273223
Repository
zenodo.org
Language
en

Abstract

The GENII project presents a transformative approach to studying Roman stone materials through the EOLITH database – a state-of-the-art geospatial and lithological platform designed to revolutionize data integration and analysis. EOLITH combines newly collected data with AI-driven tools, including a groundbreaking chatbot that offers intuitive, real-time interaction with the database. This tool empowers researchers to explore, search, and correlate data on Roman stone materials with unparalleled ease and precision. Focusing on the Dolenjska region, a vital part of the Roman province of Pannonia during the 1st to 3rd centuries AD, the project leverages advanced technologies such as AI for automated stone classification, predictive modelling, and LiDAR for geospatial analysis. These cutting-edge methods enable the precise identification of Roman quarry sites and their connections to artefacts, including funerary monuments and altars, while revealing the intricate logistics of Roman stone distribution and regional construction practices. This poster showcases the EOLITH database’s capabilities as a revolutionary research tool. It highlights its potential to transform how scholars document quarry locations, analyse geological properties, and establish connections between artefacts and their sources. By integrating geological analyses, site locations, and transportation networks with Roman city data, the GENII project bridges traditionally isolated research domains, creating a comprehensive understanding of Roman quarrying practices. Through the integration of newly gathered data and case studies from the Dolenjska region, the findings demonstrate EOLITH’s unparalleled potential to reshape our understanding of Roman stone economics. By connecting artefacts to their quarry origins, the database opens new frontiers for comparative analysis, offering a nuanced exploration of regional production systems and the socio-economic dynamics of Roman Pannonia. This project exemplifies how innovative technology can elevate archaeological research to unprecedented levels, leaving a lasting impact on the field.

Full text

Edisa Lozić Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of the Sciences and Arts, Novi trg 2, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia Acknowledgements : The author acknowledges that the project Identifying quarries in the Roman Pannonia (GENNI), ID J6-4609) was financially supported by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency. 1. Introduction Roman quarry studies have long prioritized elite materials such as marble, but the economic backbone of provincial construction relied on local limestones. In the Roman province of Pannonia, especially the Dolenjska region (1st–3rd c. AD), local quarry networks remain poorly understood due to difficulties in locating extraction sites and matching them to archaeological artefacts. The GENII project addresses this challenge by creating a digital platform EOLITH that transforms how provenance research is conducted. 2. Objectives The central objective of GENII is to create an open-access, geospatially structured digital platform —EOLITH—that integrates newly collected geological, archaeological, and artefactual data. It is designed to support: • Stone provenance research through geological fingerprinting; • Artefact–quarry correlations; • Data-driven exploration through AI-powered tools and a natural language chatbot; • Comparative and interdisciplinary research across archaeology, geology, and heritage science. 3. EOLITH Platform: A Central Research Tool The EOLITH platform is a web-based and open access scientific platform built specifically to: • Centralize information on quarries, stone types, artefacts, and their spatial distribution; • Standardize geological and archaeological data to allow comparisons across regions and typologies; • Link physical samples and monuments to their likely quarry origins using new macroscopic and petrographic analyses; • Enable interaction through an intuitive chatbot interface, allowing users to search, filter, and explore the dataset using natural language queries. Researchers can use EOLITH to: • Identify stone types from monuments and their possible sources; • Track distribution patterns across settlements and sanctuaries; • Export datasets for GIS-based or statistical analysis; • Connect with other datasets such as LUPA, enabling future data federation. 4 Methodology & Data Collection Over 250 stone artefacts—primarily altars and funerary monuments—were analysed from the Dolenjska region. Each sample underwent detailed lithological characterization. Data from these artefacts are stored in EOLITH alongside quarry zone samples, enabling high-resolution comparisons. The EOLITH interface allows users to visualize: • Artefact–quarry linkages; • Geographic distribution of quarry zones; • Material patterns across time and site types; • Underlying archaeological typologies. 5. Significance & Future Impact By making the EOLITH platform openly accessible and intuitive to use, GENII contributes a powerful, lasting tool to the study of ancient economies. It bridges gaps between disciplines and allows researchers to: • Explore Roman regional production systems in new ways; • Test and refine provenance hypotheses; • Integrate with other platforms (e.g., LUPA) for larger-scale analyses; • In the long term, EOLITH will serve as the basis for a pan-provincial digital infrastructure mapping. GENII Project: Revolutionizing Roman Stone Research through EOLITH Platform Integration A. EOLITH DB EOLITH DB is the cornerstone of the platform. It is characterised by its versatility, depth and modern design. It is suitable both for searching for specific monuments and for analysing a corpus, for example monuments from the 2nd century or monuments in which Litotype B was used. https://tinyurl.com/eolith-1 B. EOLITH Atlas EOLITH Atlas is a web GIS platform that makes it possible to analyse the spatial component of data. It is primarily intended for analysing monuments in a landscape context, for example by projecting sites onto the base maps of LiDAR or satellite images. https://tinyurl.com/EOLITHatlas2 1 3 2 C. EOLITH AI EOLITH AI is an AI chatbot. It is based on the ChatGPT platform and has been trained with the EOLITH data. It can be used like any other chatbot, but its main strength lies in putting professional-grade data analysis in the hands of every user. https://tinyurl.com/EOLITH-AI