A wiki-based tracking system may help protect Jordan’s more than 10,000 archaeological sites, including this Greco-Roman street. David Myers

Technology may be a savior of threatened antiquities

The field of archaeology and the timeworn Middle East would not seem obvious places to look for a wiki revolution. But officials in Jordan who oversee that country's vast store of antiquities will soon begin an experiment aimed at bringing 21stcentury tools to the task of protecting ancient sites. The need is especially pressing in neighboring Iraq, where looting is once again on the rise.

Over the last four years the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, with financing from the World Monuments Fund and help from the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, has built an ambitious Web-based system that will allow archaeologists and conservators there, for the first time, to gain access to decades' worth of records about Jordan's sites and to monitor the condition of those sites much more easily.

Known by the name MEGA - for Middle Eastern Geodatabase for Antiquities - the system functions in both English and Arabic, and the information in it is obtained via Google Earth satellite images. Users can find any of Jordan's more than 10,000 sites, from the ancient city of Petra to tiny unearthed remnants from antiquity, like wine presses, threshing floors and burial grounds dating to the Neolithic period.

While field reports on those sites were previously cataloged on a local database in Jordan, the new Webbased system allows this information to be found and updated much more quickly and easily. The system would not keep tomb robbers away by itselftheft and other changes and to respond with a more efficient use of resources.

"The classic rule in preservation is that you can't preserve something until you know you have it," said Timothy P. Whalen, the director of the Getty Conservation Institute, a branch of the J. Paul Getty Trust. "This kind of tool to do that does not exist anywhere right now."

The system allows information on Jordan's ancient sites  to be quickly updated. Alison Dalgity, left, of the Getty,  and Dr.Sawsan al Fakhery, Jordan's antiquities inspector.  Azadeh Vafadari / Getty Conservation Institute  

The system is scheduled to open this month, but only to authorized users. Many archaeologists say they hope it will eventually become open to a much broader group of scholars and conservators around the

world to view and add to the database.

"It's a kind of openness that is still a very new concept in parts of the Middle East,"Mr. Whalen said.

Ziad al-Saad, the director general of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, said that the country - where security and access to official information are touchy topics - was considering making the system freely accessible.

"Tourism is a prime sector of our economy, and our archaeological sites are key to that," he said.

The project, which cost about $1 million, was initially intended to begin in Iraq, where looting in the wake of the 2003 invasion set off international alarms about the threat to some of the world's oldest artifacts. But the chaos and violence in Iraq ultimately prevented the Getty from being able to work with officials there.

"The idea of shipping a couple of big computers to Iraq and hoping that they would get there and that it would all work just seemed too crazy," said Alison Dalgity, a senior project manager at the Getty who helped develop MEGA. And so the institute accepted an invitation from Jordan.

The need for such a monitoring system in Iraq is dire. The looting of ancient sites has increased again after several years of relative calm, largely because of the withdrawal of American troops and the inadequacies of a new Iraqi antiquities police.

Even Jordan, which has been effective at protecting and preserving its sites, struggles with thieves, construction projects that unearth and destroy mosaics, and unfenced livestock that wander in and damage sites. Ms. Dalgity said that in July she visited the remains of a 1,300-year-old palace near Amman whose frescoes were marred with graffiti.

Even though Iraq has stabilized greatly, Mr. Whalen said, security problems and shifting lines of bureaucratic authority remain obstacles to expanding there.

"It's still too early to even speculate about it," he said. "We'll just have to see what kind of stability develops."

But the official who oversees archaeological sites in Iraq said that the country was fully prepared to move ahead.

"I think that the security situation makes the other side think twice before they start working," Qais Hussein Rashid, the director of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage in Iraq, said in an e-mail.

Mr. Whalen said that if the program proved effective in the Middle East, it could be easily adapted for use almost anywhere.

"We could just turn off the Arabic switch," he said, "and even, you know, Canadians could use it if they wanted to."

The New York Times