The Key to Uppåkra: digitizing a unique archeological cultural heritage.

The purpose of the project The Key to Uppåkra is to create an integrated database containing spatial and chronological information from the archaeological investigations at Uppåkra in Scania, connected to a visual collection of the artefacts for further research and public visualization of the extensive sources.

The purpose of the project The Key to Uppåkra is to create an integrated database containing spatial and chronological information from the archaeological investigations at Uppåkra in Scania, connected to a visual collection of the artefacts for further research and public visualization of the extensive sources. Firstly, it will secure the quality of and access to the archaeological documentation from the site. In the project, eighteen years of very diverse archaeological investigations are synchronised into a coherent digital frame, by using Intrasis and GIS, translating digital data into visual format. Secondly, parallel to the temporal-spatial ordering, 28 000 artefacts will be photographed and made accessible on the Internet by the use of K-Samsök and Europeana, two commonly used facilities in museums. This opens up possibilities for research on societal change during the politically formative period for early Scandinavian states, based on a site with extremely long settlement continuity. The database will be internationally accessible to scholars, as well as the public, through open access. The mobilization for a database will be the launchpad for sustainable knowledge, with national and international impact. Uppåkra will be important for scholars occupied with questions on pre-urban societies and how they were established and transformed into towns, in their ecological, social and cultural context. As such, the Uppåkra database will have a global scope.