Documenting historical research for a collection information modelling. A proposal for a digital asset management system.

The paper describes part of the conceptual structure produced within the still ongoing project B.A.C.K. TO T.H.E. F.U.T.U.RE. (BIM Acquisition as Cultural Key TO Transfer Heritage of ancient Egypt For many Uses To many Users REplayed). The aim of the project was to use a semantic web infrastructure to describe archival research and tracking informations related to a hidden museum collection ‘expedition models of Egyptian architecture’ partially stored in the depots of the Museo Egizio of Turin. The outcome will be an interactive web-presentation portal of high-resolution 3D models enriched by historical and archival set of content, from the digitization procedure applied to collection objects, to the digitization process of related data and information. The development of the collection documentation of the project illustrates how is crucial to declare the semantic description underlying narrative contents. Data about single collection objects were conceptually modelled using generalizable formulas already known by CIDOC-CRM community. The description of provenance of knowledge related to the historical investigation process was modelled using CRMinf extension, exploring the possibility of making beliefs based on the available documentation and validating the results of the assumptions made during the research.