NEH Awards for Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants (March 2010)

The NEH Awards for Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants (March 2010) were announced this week. Of the eighteen projects funded, five relate to the ancient world:

University of California, Berkeley -- Berkeley, CA
Berkeley Prosopography Services: Building Research Communities and Restoring Ancient Communities through Digital Tools
Niek Veldhuis, Project Director
Outright: $49,942
To support: Development of the Berkeley Prosopography Service (BPS), an open source digital toolkit that extracts prosopographic data from TEI encoded text and generates interactive visual representations of social networks.

University of California, Los Angeles -- Los Angeles, CA
Software Interface for Real‑time Exploration of Three‑Dimensional Computer Models of Historic Urban Environments
Lisa Snyder, Project Director
Outright: $50,000
To support: The prototype development for a generalized, extensible platform that will allow for real‑time exploration, annotation, and tours in 3D computer models, using the NEH‑funded Digital Karnak as the test case.

University of New Mexico -- Albuquerque, NM
Digital Documentation and Reconstruction of an Ancient Maya Temple and Prototype of Internet GIS Database of Maya Architecture
Jennifer von Schwerin, Project Director
Outright: $49,832
To support: This project brings together an international team of archeologists, technologists, and cultural heritage site managers to develop a test implementation of a new online platform for virtual environments of significant cultural sites, using the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Copan, Honduras as a testbed.

University of Virginia -- Charlottesville, VA
New Digital Tools for Restoring Polychromy to 3D Digital Models of Sculpture
Bernard Frischer, Project Director
Outright: $50,000
To support: The development of a set of tools that would allow for the accurate inclusion and display of color for Classical sculpture, using the "Augustus of Prima Porta" in the Vatican Museums as a case study.

University of Virginia -- Charlottesville, VA
Supercomputing for Digitized 3D Models of Cultural Heritage
David Koller, Project Director
Outright: $48,549
To support: The development of new algorithms and software to process large‑scale, data‑intensive 3D models of cultural heritage materials on supercomputers.