Costis Dallas Et Al (1993) Digital Multimedia and Classical Culture: The Sacred Way Perspective

Re-formatted version (2010) of Costis Dallas, Phil Smith, Gary Lock, Janice Cornforth & Craig Davidson (1993)
Digital multi-
media and Classical culture: the Sacred Way perspective. In D. Andrew Roberts (ed.) (1993) European Museum Documentation:
Strategies and Standards. Museum Documentation Association: Cambridge, 117-130. The original text has been retained, but not
the pagination of the original publication.
Digital multimedia and Classical culture:

the Sacred Way perspective
Costis Dallas1, Phil Smith2, Gary Lock3,

Janice Cornforth & Craig Davidson4
The Sacred Way project is a cooperative international initiative for multimedia education
in archaeology and Classical civilisation. It is currently supported by the European Com-
munity COMETT programme. The project aims to produce an educational-cultural CD-I
application, which will illustrate relevant aspects of the history and culture of Classical
Athens, the methods and techniques of archaeological research, and the architectural de-
velopment of the site of the Sanctuary of Demeter in Eleusis. A powerful authoring envi-
ronment, radiosity techniques in photorealistic solid modelling, a multi-windowed hy-
permedia interface, graphical browsers and data base query tools, are among the leading
edge technologies used in the project. The paper will highlight relevant aspects of the Sa-
cred Way project, in the light of recent developments in digital multimedia. Special prob-
lems to be discussed include recent advances in digital multimedia and their relevance for
archaeology, techniques of integrating different types of knowledge and matching diverse
user perceptions in multimedia applications. Examples from Sacred Way material will be
used to illustrate the issues discussed.
Introduction
The Sacred Way project is a cooperative international initiative for multimedia
education in archaeology and Classical civilisation. The project is currently sup-
ported by the European Community COMETT II programme. Planned activities
include seminars and courses, intended to introduce archaeologists, museum pro-
fessionals and humanities educators to the techniques and potential of digital mul-
timedia as a tool for training, education and dissemination of information. The
project aims to produce a multimedia application, combining the technology of
1 Benaki Museum, Greece

2 New Media, UK
3 Institute of Archaeology, Oxford, UK
4 Mechanical Intelligence, UK
bnd 1993-2010 Costis Dallas, Phil Smith, Gary Lock, Janice Cornforth & Craig Davidson. Some
rights reserved. Work licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution -Non Commercial -No
Derivatives 2.5 License. Electronic version: <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/>
2 COSTIS DALLAS, PHIL SMITH, GARY LOCK, JANICE CORNFORTH & CRAIG DAVIDSON
Compact Disc-Interactive (CD-I) with state-of the-art photorealistic graphics and

with advanced authoring and hypermedia techniques. This paper presents work in
progress for the Sacred Way application, and discusses some of the issues involved
in its development.
The Sacred Way application may be seen as a tutorial training system in archaeo-
logical method and theory, as a hypertext-based knowledge base on Classical
Greek archaeology, society and history, or as a photorealistic computer simulation
of a complex Classical site. Sacred Way CD-I materials will be aimed at a range of
different potential audiences, including educational institutions, from secondary
schools to undergraduate education, museums and heritage centres, and, not least,
tourism and the domestic 'armchair travel' market.
The subject-matter of the application is the Sacred Way, the main road connecting
Athens, cultural and political centre of the Greek world in Classical times, with the
important sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis, site of the Eleusinian mysteries (My-
lonas 1961). The planned CD-I application will incorporate textual information,
including original Greek sources, drawings and plans, photographs, audio narra-
tive, video and photorealistic animation, to illustrate relevant aspects of:
1. the architectural development of the Sanctuary of Eleusis and selected parts
of other sites, such as the Athenian agora and the Kerameikos cemetery,
2. the history and culture of Classical Athens, illustrated by subjects such as
the Panathenaic procession, the building programme of Pericles and the
Eleusinian mysteries, the major Panhellenic cult up to the advent of Christi-
anity, and
3. the methods and techniques of contemporary archaeology, illustrated by
means of actual problems encountered in a complex archaeological site.
Classical archaeology and multimedia

Cultural heritage is a major application area for multimedia. A number of multi-
media applications have been already produced, ranging from museum interactive
exhibits to archaeological education and electronic publication (Maytom and Tor-
evell 1990; Martlew 1990; Perseus Project 1989; Smith 1991). Digital multimedia, in
particular, provide a particularly suitable environment for the incorporation of
text, images and sound, and actual historical and archaeological data. Possible ap-
plications of digital multimedia in archaeology include training in archaeological
methods and techniques, points-of-information in both museums and archaeologi-
cal sites, and multimedia "publications" for libraries and for "armchair travel"
(Lock and Dallas 1990). The last application area is particularly important, on the
Cbnd 1993-2010 Costis Dallas, Phil Smith, Gary Lock, Janice Cornforth & Craig Davidson. Some rights reserved.
DIGITAL MULTIMEDIA AND CLASSICAL CULTURE: THE SACRED WAY PERSPECTIVE 3
basis of the increase in the importance of culture and history within the field of lei-
sure and tourism.
Archaeology is an object-based discipline. It is based on the study of material re-
mains from the past, and the conditions of their deposition and subsequent history.
Archaeology is not, however, about isolated objects. It is, in a primary sense, about
the associations of moveable artefacts and immoveable features in their archaeo-
logical context, placed in relation with the two major conceptual axes of space and
time. In a secondary, but equally important sense, archaeology is also about the
people behind the objects: their creators and users. In an excavated site, archaeolo-
gists are concerned not only to put the artefacts in taxonomies, and to identify the
phases of its history, but also to find the social use of space, and to identify the sig-
nificance of particular finds for the society which used them; at a second level, ar-
chaeologists are concerned with establishing regularities in the way economy, soci-
ety and polity functioned in the past. As a discipline, therefore, archaeology lies in
the crossroads of fields such as history, geography and anthropology. It is primacy
of objects and space, suitable for visual presentation, and the cross-disciplinary na-
ture of archaeology that makes it interesting as an application field for multimedia.
Classical antiquity presents additional interest for the multimedia presentation of
archaeological material. A very large number of Classical archaeological sites have
been excavated, often showing a complex history of occupation. Since Classical
Greek building employed as a rule foundations of stone, and often – especially for
public and religious buildings – stone or marble superstructure, sites preserve fea-
tures to an extent that often allows the reconstruction of site phases. Monumental
architecture, built according to the Classical orders, is often preserved; in conjunc-
tion with impressive free-standing and architectural sculpture, richly illustrated
vases, and other artefacts, it presents visually attractive material suitable for high
resolution colour presentation. On the other hand, in contrast with prehistory,
original ancient texts have been preserved from Classical times, ranging from ora-
tory to historiography, travel books and drama plays; inscriptions found in ar-
chaeological sites often give first hand information about building procedures, po-
litical events or the function of places. Apart from field research, branches of Clas-
sical archaeology deal in fact with methods and subjects as diverse as epigraphy,
philology, history of art, the content analysis of iconography, and social history.
The variety of material and approaches suitable for the study of Classical antiquity
provides the basis of an ideal application for – and a challenge for the technical ca-
pabilities of – multimedia.
We have chosen the subject of our multimedia application for a number of reasons.
The project focuses around the city-state of Athens in Classical times, that is, the
paradigmatic society of Greek antiquity, connected with important historical, intel-
lectual and artistic developments which in effect underlie the entire history of
Rome, Renaissance and the modern world. The vast majority of the material in-
cluded in Greek civilisation courses concerns Classical Athens.
The Sacred Way itself delineates an itinerary connecting the Athenian agora with
the sanctuary of Demeter in Eleusis; the civic centre of the city-state of Athens vs.
the sanctuary of a panhellenic cult, open to non-Athenians and slaves. The Sacred
Way itself hosted the Panathenaic procession, the major celebration of Athenian
patriotic pride and civic identity, but also of the procession of initiates towards
Eleusis for the mysteries. The sanctuary of Demeter in Eleusis, in particular, was
occupied from the Bronze age down to late Antiquity. It presents a complex ar-
chaeological stratigraphy, interesting problems of phasing and architectural recon-
struction, figurative monuments and important finds including painted pottery
and architectural sculpture. Although very little is known about the Eleusinian
mysteries, it is certain that they were the major cult of Greece, especially in Helle-
nistic and Roman times; being the first "egalitarian" religion, open to free people
and slaves alike, it heralds important changes that were destined to find later a ma-
jor expression in Christianity. On the other hand, the mythological cycle of Deme-
ter presents a potent symbolism for themes such as death and regeneration, and
the opposition between nature and culture.
Information structure and user interface

The data used in the Sacred Way application relate, in a direct sense, to the ar-
chaeological remains from the Sacred Way of Classical antiquity, especially the
sanctuary of Demeter in Eleusis. The form of the data includes text, both from an-
cient sources and from modern authors, soundtrack, images, diagrams and draw-
ings, maps and photorealistic animation. Thus, the user can expect to find in the
Sacred Way disc extracts from the Homeric hymn to Demeter, an important source
of information on the myth of Demeter and the mysteries; text captions and sound-
track explanations of specific subjects, such as the myth of Persephone, or the ar-
chitectural phases of the Telesterion, the temple of Demeter; images of the actual
condition of the archaeological site; photographs of the Great Eleusinian relief, rep-
resenting Demeter, Persephone and the young prince Triptolemos before his mis-
sion to spread the gifts of agriculture around the world; plans and elevation draw-
ings of the Mycenaean megaron which occupied the site during late Bronze age, as
reconstructed by archaeologists; a photorealistic animation of the procession of ini-
tiates approaching the entrance of the sanctuary in the dusk, then moving through
the gates of the Propylaia towards the Telesterion.
The purpose of the Sacred Way project, however, is not to create an encyclopaedia
or an electronic publication of the archaeological site of Eleusis. It is to produce a
multimedia application that will be used for – less or more formal – education in
ancient history, Classical civilisation and art, in archaeology and its methods, and
in the use of multimedia in culture. In an indirect sense, therefore, the data that
will be stored on the Sacred Way disc relate to these broader information domains.
These multimedia data need to be adequate to support presentations of varying
flexibility on subjects such as an outline of Greek architecture, the emergence of the
Athenian democracy, archaeological stratigraphy, and an introduction to digital
multimedia.
Data structures
Optical media, such as CD-I, provide the opportunity of storing large amounts of
data belonging to an information domain, and then access this data in a variety of
ways, in order to address specific aspects of the information domain. The data,
which represent the declarative aspect of the knowledge, are stored just once. Al-
ternative presentations can then be constructed by associating the data in appro-
priate sets, which are connected by means of different navigation (browsing) struc-
tures. The set inclusion relationships and navigation structures represent the pro-
cedural aspect of knowledge in the given information domain.
We envisage a three-tiered structure for Sacred Way data. We call object an elemen-
tary data unit: a text caption, a bitmap, a short animation sequence or sound com-
mentary; on account of the variety of their form, objects have no fixed data struc-
ture. A frame, on the other hand, is a structure of specific objects, combined for con-
current display on a CD-I screen; the structure represents not only set inclusion re-
lationships, but also all screen positioning and sequencing information necessary.
Finally, a presentation is a structure of frames which address a specific area of inter-
est and which are intended to be viewed in a single sitting, in a less or more prede-
termined order; each presentation is defined by a network, specifying both the set
of the frames it contains and the instructions determining the traversal of the
frames.
While an object is the elementary physical unit of information, the elementary logi-
cal unit of information is the frame, i.e., a concurrent structure of data objects; in-
deed, a caption or an image conveys little meaning without a context provided by
complementary multimedia information. In the Sacred Way project, a frame is
used to address a specific topic according to a given perspective. Each topic concerns
one of the following categories: things, people, events, places or intangible con-
cepts. The Great Eleusinian relief, the sacred objects of the Eleusinian mysteries,
and the chariot of Triptolemos, are all things. Iktinos, the architect, Pericles, the
Athenian politician of the fifth century B.C., the goddess Persephone, and Prof.
G.E. Mylonas, the excavator, are all people. The battle of Marathon, the Periclean
building programme and the procession of the Panathenaia festival are events.
Athens, the cemetery of Kerameikos, and the Telesterion are places. Slavery in an-
cient Greece, the Doric order, and seriation are concepts. Apart from information
with necessarily variable structure, each category of topics is characterised by an
appropriate set of attributes; for instance, places have attributes determining their
extent coordinates, and whole-part geographic inclusion relationships; events have
date attributes. While not final, it is hoped that the categorisation of topics in these
five categories will allow the collection of the necessary structured information for
each topic and its storage in a relational data base.
Perspectives, on the other hand, are alternative views of the same information topic
according to different types of user models. The frame for the topic 'Pericles', for
instance, needs to be different for an interested layman compared to a Classics un-
dergraduate, and for a course of ancient history compared to an introduction to
Classical art. All four frames may share identical objects, for example, the bust of
Pericles by the ancient sculptor Kresilas. However, even this image will probably
have to occupy a larger screen window in the Classical art than in the ancient his-
tory course. The main textual caption will probably be different in the four frames
of this example, although this need not always be the case. Additional multimedia
objects will be used for each frame, reflecting the different emphases in back-
ground knowledge and special interest of each perspective.
Presentations are structures linking together frames that are to be accessed in the
same session. We are not concerned at this stage about higher order structures,
such as courses. Although guidelines for a suggested order of using Sacred Way
presentations could be given, we are convinced that most teachers will use the ap-
plication as a flexible information resource on a per lesson basis, asking students to
consult material about a particular topic, e.g., the Homeric epic or the Periclean
building programme. The lay user, on the other hand, requires considerable assis-
tance within a single session of using the application, but should not be con-
strained in accessing presentations in any desired order; we do not, for the mo-
ment, plan to provide the Sacred Way disc as a programmed instruction course.
The degree of flexibility in accessing frames within each presentation varies ac-
cording to its purpose, and also according to the perspective selected. Graph struc-
tures, with nodes representing frames and branches representing links between
frames, may be used to visualise the structure of presentations. On one extreme, a
presentation can be represented by a network, connected with an arbitrary con-
figuration of symmetric branches; frames in this presentation can be accessed in a
variety of different ways and in the order desired by the user. On the other ex-
treme, presentations can be seen as finite state machines: a frame will be desig-
nated as a start node, and directed branches (arrows) will lead the user through a
structure of frames, accessed in a particular order, to an end node, representing the
conclusions frame of the presentation; history presentations are typical examples
of subjects suited to this model, with frames arranged according to the temporal
sequence of events that they describe.
Browsing structures
The navigation of a multimedia data base may be seen as assisted conceptual
'travel': assisted to a smaller or greater extent, on the basis of the degree in which
the user is directed from frame to frame, or, conversely, is allowed to follow his or
her own way through information. Actual multimedia applications provide an in-
termediate degree of assistance between the extremes of the tour and the database
approach, to cater for the "passive" and "active" user respectively. In the tour ap-
proach, the user is guided through a predetermined sequence of frames, with little
or no freedom of altering the course of the presentation. In the database approach,
the user is allowed unlimited freedom in accessing any frame of information, re-
gardless of its current position in the application.
The market for which the Sacred Way application is intended determines that we
should give particular emphasis on the flexibility of the mode of interaction. 'Arm-
chair travellers' who are likely to purchase the Sacred Way disc (or, for that matter,
any multimedia application in the domain of cultural heritage) are also likely to
have a varying degree of background knowledge on archaeology and Classical
civilisation. These users should be allowed to start using the disc in a hand-holding
mode, so that they are not lost within the maze of information; as their knowledge
increases, however, they should be allowed to move more freely within the appli-
cation, and to retrieve additional information according to their special interests.
The same is true of students in a foundation course in archaeology or Classical
civilisation. Therefore, instead of choosing to implement a particular compromise
point in the tour-database continuum, we have decided to attempt to provide a
flexible structure, so that users may be able to receive the degree and the type of
assistance they require from the application.
It should be recalled that topic and perspective are the key, identifying attributes of
each frame. Links to other frames in the Sacred Way application, be it hypertext
links, hot spots in visual information, or buttons, are not hard-wired physical
pointers. Instead, they are logical pointers, identified by a topic and perspective
designation, which is matched with the perspective of the current frame in order to
identify the destination frame, and thus determine the traversal of the application.
Links are thus attributes of objects, the elementary physical data units, not of
frames. This allows us to store objects, such as captions of text, just once, and reuse
them so that different hypertext links will be provided for alternative user models
(perspectives).
Thus, the differences in user model affected by the mechanism of perspective con-
cerns not only the information displayed on frames about the same topic, but also
the traversal mode to other frames. For instance, in the example of Pericles' bust
above, while the name of Kresilas, the sculptor, should appear as a hypertext link
for the Classical art aficionado, it should not be highlighted for the eyes of the inter-
ested layman; if the latter is interested in Classical sculpture, he or she should be
directed at first to more generic, introductory frames on that subject. The layman
requesting information about Pericles will need to be prompted to look up the
frame for Aspasia, the famous hetaira from Miletos who became the companion of
the Athenian politician; this should not necessarily be the case for the Classics un-
dergraduate, who had better look up frames on the Athenian constitution, fifth
century Athenian imperialism, and perhaps read original extracts of Plutarch's Life
of Pericles.
Subject access
The data structure we chose to implement for the Sacred Way application is an ex-
tended hypertext data base. It is extended in the sense of having both conditional
links between frames, afforded by the perspectives mechanism, and also search-
able attributes for topics, that may be used in a traditional data base query mode.
We feel that this is particularly important in order to allow the users to identify in-
formation that they are likely to be interested in, and answer questions not catered
for by the finite number of predefined presentations in the Sacred Way disc. The
importance of this capability lies in providing for the pleasure of discovery, that is
very often taken away from the user by multimedia applications when everything
is pre-processed for the user; as shown by the variety in the pattern of museum vis-
its by visitors, the pleasure of discovery is crucial not only for the serious student,
but also for the inquisitive layman.
We envisage that users will query the data base mainly for two purposes: firstly, to
identify structured frames of information on a subject of interest, such as civic
buildings of the Archaic period in Eleusis, or domestic life; and secondly, to re-
trieve to the screen frames containing elementary data objects, such as images of
red-figured vases, quotations from Aristophanic comedy or elevations of Doric or-
der buildings. For this purpose, it is necessary to provide an indexing mechanism
both for frames and for objects belonging to these frames. Frames will be indexed
according to the topic which they present. Since topics belong to one of the five
categories of thing, people, place, event and concept, additional indexed attributes
will be available for access to frames concerning one of these categories. Queries
about people will be used to retrieve information on particular roles, such as politi-
cians, priests or demigods; queries about events will be used to retrieve informa-
tion about historical events on the basis of temporal search criteria. In addition,
data objects will also be indexed according to their data type and primary subject.
A crucial aspect of a large data base is the existence of an effective overview of in-
formation in the base, so that the user knows what is available and what is not.
With a few hundred megabytes of data, it is important to provide a better over-
view than just an alphabetic list. It should be recalled that, when they first use the
Sacred Way disc, most users will not yet be familiar with its subject matter; a list of
terms such as Koroibos, gynaikonitis, the kallichoron well, or, for that matter, the ar-
chaeological method topics of intrasite spatial analysis, Harris matrix and thermolu-
minescence is likely to confuse them, and put them off from using the application
altogether!
What we intend to provide is a thesaurus, organising topics and subjects in a con-
ceptual hierarchy; users will thus be able to identify, using a hierarchy browser,
firstly a broad area of interest, such as architects, and then select the frame for a
particular architect, such as Koroibos. We feel that the compromise involved in fit-
ting an essentially network structure of semantic relationships between subjects
into a hierarchy is offset by the simple overview capabilities afforded by tree struc-
tures; besides, a tree structure is considerably easier to implement.
Users will also be able to use a text search function, operating on the subject index;
the search will present to the users a selection list of matched terms, which will
point them to appropriate sections of the subject thesaurus. In addition, we intend
to implement the perspectives mechanism in querying as well, so that, for instance,
only topics for which frames exist for the 'layman' perspective will be presented in
the hierarchy browser used for querying, if the 'layman' perspective is currently
selected in the application.
The subject thesaurus will also be used as a glossary, introducing the user to the
meaning of particular terms. The identifier of each particular subject in the hierar-
chy browser will be connected with a brief, one-phrase explanation of the subject.
The tight coupling of the glossary with the query function will ensure that the term
selected by the user is really the one he or she is interested in. The user will also be
able to acquire backbone information simply by browsing within the hierarchy of
subject terms, and thus use more efficiently the multimedia information in the ap-
plication.
Space and time

Archaeological information is organised according to two primary conceptual
axes: space and time. In an archaeological excavation, such as the one that pro-
duced the extremely complex site of the sanctuary of Demeter at Eleusis, the x-y
coordinates represent space. The z coordinate of depth, on the other hand, primar-
ily represents time; excavation proceeds from the most recent phase of archaeo-
logical remains to the most ancient.
Since the topography of the Sacred Way, and especially the Eleusis site, is the start-
ing point for the Sacred Way application, it is important to provide a means for
both retrieval and display of the conceptual axes of space and time. For this pur-
pose, we will use integrated space-time windows. These windows will have a fixed
position in the Sacred Way screen, as will also the subject hierarchy browser, and
buttons for the key functions of the application.
The time window will consist of a timeline: a thermometer-like "instrument",
marked with dates, from late Bronze age to the Roman period. Zoom and pan op-
erations will be allowed, so that the resolution of the instrument can be increased
for the Classical times, when precise dates of events are often known. Dates will be
specified as ranges between a start date and an end date, and displayed in the time
window in inverse video. Frame traversal will update the timeline highlight. Con-
versely, the user will be able to perform "time travel" by clicking and dragging the
timeline selected to a desired date; the timeline highlight will snap to the nearest
date interval for which an information frame has been defined, and will display
that frame.
The space window is in effect a mapping window, providing operations such as
zoom and pan; the resolution of the mapping data varies from a map of ancient
Greece to plans of specific buildings in the Sanctuary of Demeter. A "You are here"
symbol identifies the current position of the user in the spatial domain of the ap-
plication. Moving the symbol to a different location in the map (subject to the con-
straints imposed by the currently selected perspective) allows linking with other
frames; movement from frame to frame, using other links such as hypertext or hot
spot areas in graphical objects represented, similarly updates the position of the
symbol as well. Since the archaeological space represented by the mapping func-
tion is altered with time, spatial data will be organised in layers, so that different
plans of the site can be produced, reflecting different architectural phases of the
site.
Thus, if a user selects the frame for the Telesterion built by the architect Iktinos as
part of the wide-ranging building programme of Pericles, a plan of the central area
of the sanctuary of Eleusis as it was in the time of Pericles will be shown in the
space window, and the "You are here" symbol will be displayed in the location of
the Telesterion. The highlight in the time window will be set to the middle of the
fifth century B.C. The information windows will present appropriate information,
such as captions describing the building project, photographs of building elements
from the Iktinian telesterion etc. If the user now moves the timeline to the fourth
century B.C., the Philonian telesterion frame will be selected, and the information
windows will be updated appropriately; the plan in the space window will be
modified, to reflect the fourth century B.C. phase of the sanctuary.
The time-space windows allow an interesting traversal mode if the archaeological
methods perspective is selected. The student may select an appropriate section of
the site, such as an excavation trench. Associated information presented may in-
clude illustrations of finds within the current archaeological layer, isometric draw-
ings and sections of the trench. He or she may then alter the timeline, effectively
removing the current layer, "destroying" later features and uncovering original
ones; the process may be reversed by altering the time direction. The concept has
been used for archaeology training in a number of computer applications devel-
oped by the the University of Southampton (Wheatley 1990). In the light of the
Southampton experience, we are also careful not to treat this "excavation traversal
mode" as simulation of an actual excavation, but to regard it rather as an educa-
tional experience allowing students to grasp basic archaeological concepts and re-
lationships.
W-buttons and guides

Apart from the time-space windows and the subject hierarchy browser, W-buttons
and guides are two important fixed elements of the Sacred Way user interface. We
noticed that a number of important information links may be generalised under
the following basic questions:
What? Concerning objects in the real world, artefacts, the main subject of a
frame.
Who? Concerning people: historical personnages, mythological figures, social
roles and groups of people.
Where? Concerning the spatial dimension: particular buildings and features, lo-
cations, cities.
When? Concerning the temporal dimension: dates, events.
Why? Concerning amplifications, explanations, further discussion.

We decided to allow traversal using buttons corresponding to each of these ques-
tions, and displayed with appropriate icons-textual cues. According to their sub-
ject-matter, frames may have one or more of these W-buttons. Users can still select
explicit links, by selecting directly highlighted terms in a hypertext caption; they
may, however, decide to use one of the W-buttons, and be guided to appropriate
frames of information. In that case, they will be presented with a selection list of
appropriate subjects, displaying their glossary explanations, and will be able to
choose a desired frame for display. For example, the Who button in the Iktinian
Telesterion frame would produce a selection list including Pericles and Iktinos, and
giving one-phrase descriptions of the two men. It is apparent that the W-buttons
are not hard-wired hypertext buttons; they resemble the text search mechanism
used for subject access, but instead of looking for a string pattern within the set of
links of a frame, they implement an implicit query based on their semantic attrib-
utes.
Guides, on the other hand, are the user interface "objects" corresponding to differ-
ent perspectives, i.e. user models. By taking the analogy of assisted travel to its
logical conclusion, users of the Sacred Way application will have the option of be-
ing guided around the information available by the guide of their liking. The idea
is an extension of the main interaction model of earlier applications, such as the
disc produced by New Media for the Birmingham City Museum. Guides will be
represented as icons, will speak in the background as users move from frame to
frame; some of them may even make occasional appearances as talking heads or as
cartoons. The guides to be selected will certainly cater for the main perspectives
required for the purpose of the Sacred Way project: Classical civilisation and art,
ancient history, archaeological methods, and multimedia in cultural heritage.
Guides may, therefore, include:
• a traditional ancient historian, likely to present inscriptions, ancient sources
from the original, and cover the core curriculum of a Greek history course
• a field archaeologist, with an up to date knowledge of modern methods and
techniques, and a bias for the use of formal and scientific methods
• "the old archaeologists", appearing together to highlight the experience of
archaeological discovery in the site; each of them supports different views
on the problems of phasing and reconstruction of the site of Eleusis
• a cultural historian, with a leaning towards the critical tradition, and an in-
terest in the social content of Classical art, but also in mythology and every-
day life
• a tourist guide, who will give an introductory account of the site of Eleusis
and of Classical culture; the guide will be frequently bugged by a tourist, a
cult archaeology initiate knowledgeable about hitherto unknown aspects of
the Eleusinian mysteries, von Daniken and Atlantis
• a multimedia designer, who will see topics presented as an opportunity to
discuss particular problems posed and illustrate appropriate multimedia
techniques.
A subset of these guides, providing users with distinct choices of viewpoint, will
be implemented in the Sacred Way application. Although they may be similar to
well-established social stereotypes, or indeed resemble specific individuals, the Sa-
cred Way guides do not exist in the real world. The are, in fact, user interface con-
structs, intended to increase the attractiveness of the presentation, match particular
users' backgrounds and special interests, and thus enhance the effectiveness of the
Sacred Way application. One guide may be active at a time. From each frame,
however, users will be able to move to other frames dealing with the same topic
from a different perspective, by selecting an appropriate guide button.
The scrapbook
Apart from a conceptual overview of the information of the disc, it is necessary to
provide users with an overview of information accessed at a particular session,
supporting the repetition of part of a session and the structured revision of topics
covered in the session. Previous and next frame buttons will be provided as part of
a presentation structure; on their own, however, they are inadequate in providing
the necessary control.
A journaling function, allowing users to inspect and access information about pre-
vious frames accessed, is easily implemented within the Sacred Way framework.
To implement it, topics and their one-line glossary descriptions are appended to a
selection list, similar to that provided by the W-button and text search functions
described above. The user may browse through the journal list, select an earlier
frame, or send the list to a printer, to function as a memory aid for the information
accessed.
One-line glossary descriptions are, however, unlikely to satisfy the role of an over-
view and revision mechanism; browsing through all previously accessed frames
may confuse, rather than enlighten the user, especially if he or she has seen a large
number of frames looking for information of interest. In order to allow an over-
view of a session that will be controlled by the user, we intend to provide a scrap-
book function. At any frame, users will be able to mark the frame with a bookmark
for inclusion in the scrapbook. Users will be able to inspect currently defined
bookmarks in a selection list, and move back to a selected frame. Each frame in the
bookmark will have a specified "method" of hard output, which will specify se-
lected keywords, text, bitmap images, diagrams and references for further reading
that are to be printed. The fact that frames are included to the scrapbook by the
user, rather than being accumulated automatically by the application as is the case
with the journal list, ensures that printed output will be limited to reasonable lev-
els of quantity, and that it will consist of the information actually required by the
user.
In an enhanced Sacred Way application, that will use a CD-I player with local
magnetic storage, the scrapbook function will provide support for the storage of
user notes, customised instructions and user-defined linear presentations. In fact,
the only additional function of the scrapbook necessary to support such user-
defined presentations is a facility to load and save the contents of the scrapbook
from magnetic storage. Although not relevant for the lay user, such an enhanced
Sacred Way application could be of particular use in the classroom.
'Surrogate walk'
The photorealistic model of the sanctuary of Eleusis in its original state is one of
the major attractions of the planned Sacred Way disc. Information about the origi-
nal elevation of buildings is extracted from published sources on the site; plans,
elevations and sections of the actual and reconstructed site are used to create a
wireframe model. Textures from actual building materials from the site, such as
local Eleusinian limestone and Pentelic marble, and archaeological knowledge
about Greek building, will be used in order to create a full model of selected trails
within the sanctuary. The model will employ radiosity techniques, in order to re-
duce the time necessary for rendering the actual images used for the animation. To
deal with the non-mechanical appearance of most archaeological material, includ-
ing building elements and other artefacts, pecial tools, such as a three-dimensional
sculpting tool, are under development (Cornforth et al. 1990).
In the finished application, users will be able, using an appropriate pointing de-
vice, to move about in the model of the site, following the steps of an ancient visi-
tor. At selected points, they will be able to point at specific hot spots, i.e., areas of
the screen, or select one of the other selection tools provided by the user interface,
in order to retrieve other information frames about relevant subjects.
Although the photorealistic animation shares with the space window the same ca-
pability of reflecting the position of the imaginary visitor in the ancient site, we
shall keep the animation as part of the variable information windows, rather than
allow it to appear within the space window. The reason is that the space window
always reflects what is actually known about the site, while animation presents an
informed archaeological view of what was the original appearance of the site, not
different in that from information presented in text captions about historical and
cultural topics; to use the animation as an accurate marker of spatial position
would misrepresent reality to the user. Besides, the logistics of CD-I storage and
the cost of computer graphics generation limit the animation possible in the Sacred
Way project to a few minutes. Animation objects will be included in a relatively
small number of selected frames, alongside other information. These frames will
deal primarily with Greek architecture and building techniques, and with the func-
tion and significance of places within the reconstructed archaeological site.
For the majority of users, the 'surrogate walk' through a photorealistic model of the
site of Eleusis will be the primary access point for information retrieval from the
Sacred Way CD-I application. In computer graphics work related to the project, we
are striving to produce as believable a simulation of an actual trail through the site,
in its original state, as possible. We have yet to solve problems relating not so much
with rendering buildings and landscape, but with conveying the "feel" of a place
inhabited by people: we would like to avoid the impression of an empty, "clinical"
reconstruction, and think of using a combination of sound, light and haze effects in
order to address this problem. Although we are limited by the current capabilities
of the CD-I screen and the practicalities of storage and animation efficiency, the
combination of media and computer graphics techniques can give results of strik-
ing visual realism. This realism will make the application more attractive to use,
and thus more effective in its training, educational and recreational mission.
A word of caution is, however, in order at this point. 'An image is worth a thou-
sand words' not least because is readily accepted by viewers as indisputable proof
of reality. The problem caused by the application of very effective graphical recon-
structions for historical-archaeological ethics is related to the fact that very rarely is
the form and history of ancient buildings beyond scholarly dispute; in fact, the
sanctuary of Demeter presents archaeologists with a number of intriguing prob-
lems of phasing and architectural form. The 'innocent' user, who is more likely to
access information through the 'surrogate walk' model, is also the most likely prey
to this deceptive power of images.
We would like to avoid the "pink cement" approach to visual reconstruction,
whereby architectural elements that are reconstructed are clearly marked as such
for the viewer, by using a different colour for reconstructed surfaces. This would
detract from the appeal and immediacy of navigating within the graphic model.
We intend, however, to provide the necessary caution to the users of the Sacred
Way discs by exploiting the capabilities of CD-I: using a concurrent and windowed
environment, whereby the 'surrogate walk' shares the screen with contextual in-
formation and is supplemented by audio commentary, providing where appopri-
ate alternative reconstructions of major architectural monuments, and preempting
the appearance of tentative reconstruction elements using appopriate visual cues.
This issue is intimately linked with the overall user interface and interaction model
that we envisage for the Sacred Way application.
Conclusion
The Sacred Way project is still at the stage of design. In the present paper, a num-
ber of important aspects concerning the technologies, structures and user interface
of the planned CD-I disc have been presented. Small amounts of data have been
collected, in order to allow the effective testing of the ideas currently adopted by
the project team, before the large investment in effort necessary in the develop-
ment stage is made. We are actively looking for further sources of funds, apart
from the COMETT contribution that the project has received so far, in order to pro-
ceed to the production of the CD-I application. In the meantime, a small Hyper-
card prototype, implementing in schematic form some of the information structure
and user interface options that we have presented above, has been developed; we
intend to spend the immediately following period extending and enhancing this
prototype.
The aim of the Sacred Way project is to provide training and educational materials
in the domain of Classical civilisation, archaeology and multimedia in the cultural
heritage sector. We are particularly concerned that the materials we produce are
not only scholarly and accurate, but also effective in generating interest in the in-
formation domains addressed by the project. The subjects of archaeology, ancient
history, culture and art, but also that of multimedia technology, appear deceptively
easy and attractive to the lay user. The complexity of the information in all these
domains, and the fact that few users -- students and lay people alike -- will have a
sophisticated background in the knowledge areas concerned, makes the task of
producing a large multimedia application a non-trivial one. While not sacrificing
quality and sophistication, we are determined to provide a colourful, graduated
and attractive path for potential users to the vast universe of knowledge repre-
sented both by information technology and culture. In one phrase, the Sacred Way
perspective to cultural multimedia is this: provide alternative perspectives for us-
ers to choose from, and thus make the road to knowledge easy and interesting, not
difficult and dull.
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Costis Dallas Et Al (1993) Digital Multimedia and Classical Culture: The Sacred Way Perspective

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Re-formatted version (2010) of Costis Dallas, Phil Smith, Gary Lock, Janice Cornforth & Craig Davidson (1993)

Digital multimedia and Classical culture:

Costis Dallas1, Phil Smith2, Gary Lock3,

1 Benaki Museum, Greece

Compact Disc-Interactive (CD-I) with state-of the-art photorealistic graphics and

Classical archaeology and multimedia

Information structure and user interface

Space and time

W-buttons and guides

Why? Concerning amplifications, explanations, further discussion.

cations and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology 1991, British Archaeological

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