Background

The AABA project will offer new perspectives and dynamics around the existing collections at the Lisbon Military Museum (MML), which will be very relevant for tourism agents (local economy), increase the information available to citizens (culture, education for life) , and provide the museum with new technical data on its collections (management). It is worth mentioning the broad acceptance of the project among European military museums already contacted, reaffirming the importance of the project.

With this work it will be possible to guarantee the development of a catalog with technical data and a range of new knowledge to be included in the public database to be developed and to be linked to other European initiatives. The form of collaboration will be extended to institutions and individuals who are available to contribute, validate and use the existing information generated during the project.

The AABA project is innovative and essential, as it will connect the academic world with the business world (tertiary sector of the economy, services) through the MML as a catalyst for the local economy and reference points for the development of tourism in the Lisbon area, but also because is based on a perspective of the history of science (metallurgical technology) to address the evolution of European conflicts between the 16th and 19th centuries, with a debate on the importance of technology for the birth and death of empires, a case study of visible properties and not visible and characteristics of a specific type of heritage.

The AABA project will project a greater connection between the University and the population of Lisbon, through its initiatives with citizens, but also a projection of the city of Lisbon in the international contacts that it will generate with foreign Universities and Museums.

The AABA project has an area of technological research and historical and cultural investigation, but also an area of knowledge dissemination (IT), dedicated to the transversality of local dynamics between culture, security and entertainment (tourism).

Objetivos

The objective of the AABA project is to develop a case study using a set of new tools and standard methods for the chemical analysis of bronze from historical artillery pieces and produce digitalization for the dissemination of cultural heritage (3D and enhanced 2D).

Using bronze artillery from the 16th and 19th centuries as cultural heritage objects, the research will record and store the visible and non-visible properties and characteristics of Cultural Heritage objects, which will probably be a first step for Portugal to collaborate in the objectives of the the European project of the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage. (ECCCH).

As a starting point for the development of the AABA project, a work plan was designed and developed to provide services to museums and other cultural heritage institutions, thus bridging the gap between national, regional and local cultural heritage institutions, public or private entities.

The AABA project aims to expand the development of a multidisciplinary and multisectoral collaboration platform in Cultural Heritage, focusing on user needs and ease of use, as well as supporting an open digital ecosystem capable of providing the tools and new services that allow expand future research and innovations in different areas, to collaborate with the business community with knowledge and experience in this area, and the UNESCO.

The AABA project also includes the collaborative production and dissemination of shared data to support the project's research into the needs of the community interested, in this specific case, in the study of military bronze in the period under study. It sets out clear rules for participation in existing and future community development initiatives, digital innovation in cultural heritage and cultural and creative industries, including tourism.

As the work plan shows, the project's long-term objective is to preserve data with the collaboration of museums, the main beneficiaries of the results of the AABA project, which guaranteed the continuity of the results beyond the project term.

The preservation of digitized data (public and private) and the possibility of receiving information from multiple users, including AI automation, is a strategy that will be encouraged for the development of innovative services.

The guarantee that the developed platform and the necessary storage will extend beyond the useful life of the project will be in its association with IT services from the School of Arts and Humanities of the University of Lisbon.

The websites (project and front-end Database) will be a connection point between the university, cultural agents and users (public and private) and a way of disseminating knowledge and preserving cultural heritage.

In this sense, one of the added values of the AABA project is the opening of possibilities for using the ecosystem already developed for multiple other heritage areas based on the same model, only with the specialization of thematic front-ends, or even the possibility of collaborating with European projects such as the public database “ARIADNEplus” (european project). 

With this in mind, bronze artillery pieces as objects of cultural heritage with enormous potential, both in historical and technological aspects, we designed the aforementioned case study of the "Bronze DNA" for artillery pieces. With it, we will research, for example, the History of technology using non-visible properties and characteristics.