The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) recently named A Cemetery and Quarry from Imperial Gabii, edited by Laura M. Banducci and Anna Gallone and published by the University of Michigan Press, as the 2024 recipient of its Award for Outstanding Work in Digital Archaeology. Presented annually by AIA, this award honors projects, groups, and individuals that deploy digital technology in innovative ways in the realms of excavation, research, teaching, publishing, or outreach.
The second publication of the Gabii Project—an international archaeological initiative led by Kelsey Museum Director Nic Terrenato—A Cemetery and Quarry from Imperial Gabii (2021) explores the “close but sometimes tense relationship between where people live, work, trade, and bury their dead” in the ancient Latin city of Gabii, Italy. As the story of the site unfolds, the publication demonstrates how the “distinction between spaces of the living and spaces of the dead was not so clear-cut.”
What sets A Cemetery and Quarry from Imperial Gabii apart is its innovative digital format. An open-access, hybrid volume, it employs a “layered” structure to present the site’s history and excavation through chronological narrative; phasing, features, and interpretation; and stratigraphy and technical reports. All the while, an interactive 3-D model accompanies the text—allowing users to simultaneously read the narrative while virtually exploring the site’s stratigraphic units and archaeological features.
Banducci, Gallone, and the Gabii Project will be honored during the Awards Ceremony of the Joint Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America and the Society for Classical Studies, which will be held on Saturday, January 6, 2024, at 6 p.m. CT in Chicago, Illinois.
Congratulations, Gabii team!
