MissMarble, an Interdisciplinary Data Base of Marble for Archaeometric, Art History and Restoration Use

Archaeological research projects result in various types of data: sample descriptions, analytical data, photographs, measured values. After the completion of the project, these partly structured data remain typically unpublished. Although these data would be, in principle, ready for dissemination for any scientific purposes upon request, only the author possesses the information regarding the storage and code system of the data. The verification of the conclusions of the publications is often difficult in light of the gathered data. Their transfer to interested third research parties is blocked by their unstructured or undocumented formats. Consequently, sometimes work is unnecessarily repeated: the resources employed by the applied research equipment are used needlessly. Moreover, although researchers are expected to publish their data together with the scientific contributions, the publication of voluminous raw data is discouraged. Some journals provide data repository functions, but even if such a repository is provided, the storage must be organised in such a manner that the structure and format are comprehensible for any specialist. Furthermore, the data must be stored in reliable data centres, where they are archived for a long time and remain available even if the information technology (IT) solutions change.