1. PROJECT ------------ Title: Digitising Jemdet Nasr, 1988-1989 Dates: April 2019-January 2020 Funding organisation: British Institute for the Study of Iraq Grant no.: N/A We thank the British Institute for the Study of Iraq for their generous support to digitise the diapositives from the Jemdet Nasr excavation in Iraq. We also thank the University of Reading for hosting the associated website for the project, as well as covering the costs of data deposition in the University of Reading Research Data Archive. 2. DATASET ------------ Title: Jemdet Nasr Field Diapositives, 1988-1989 Description: The Dataset consists of digitised copies of original Kodachrome diapositives taken during the 1988 and 1989 seasons of excavation at the site of Jemdet Nasr, located in southern Iraq (32.717°N 44.779°E). The excavation was carried out in 1988 and 1989 under the direction of Roger J. Matthews. The excavation was funded by the British School of Archaeology in Iraq, of which Matthews was the director at the time. The diapositives include stills of fieldwork activity, archaeological features, objects in situ and after processing in the on-site laboratory, as well as images of local individuals building a traditional reed house and stills of sealing impressions taken by Matthews at the Iraq Museum in Baghdad (mainly dating to the 4th millennium BC). Due to the onset of the Gulf War in 1990, excavations were halted permanently and only preliminary reports were published of the two seasons. The purpose of the digitisation project is to allow for better integration of the material through open access publication and a dedicated website . The diapositives were digitised by Mónica Palmero Fernández at the University of Reading in August 2019 using a DSLR camera. Publication Year: 2021 Creator(s): Dr Mónica Palmero Fernández; Prof Roger J. Matthews Organisation(s): University of Reading Rights-holder(s): Roger J. Matthews Source(s): Original Kodachrome diapositives in possession of Prof Roger J. Matthews. 3. TERMS OF USE ----------------- Copyright Roger J. Matthews 1988-1989. This dataset is licensed by the rights-holder under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ 4. CONTENTS ------------ File listing -README_Jemdet-Nasr.txt: Information on the project and the data contained. -JN_File_Key.xlsx: This file provides detailed information on each file contained in folders JN01 to JN27. File generated using Microsoft® Excel for Mac Version 16.29. -Folders JN01 to JN27: These folders contain high resolution digital scans of the original Kodachrome diapositives. Each folder corresponds to a physical case of the same number containing the original diapositives, which are numbered using the same key as the digital scans in the following format: . For example, file corresponds to the scan of the first diapositive in the corresponding JN01 box, which is also labelled . There are no more than 50 diapositives per box and no more than 30 boxes, thus numbering sequence is limited to double digits. The folders are organised chronologically (1988 to 1989) and roughly thematically. The original photographic files were produced using Canon proprietary RAW format .CR2 and were processed (where applicable) using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 9.1 Release Camera Raw 12.1. Any metadata associated with processed files is attached as a .xmp caddy file, thus preserving the integrity of the original RAW file. These are easily readable by compatible image processing software. 5. METHOD and PROCESSING -------------------------- A detailed description of the method and processing developed specifically for this project and employed to generate the Dataset has been published: Palmero Fernández, M. 2020. DSLR Digitisation of Colour Slides: The Digitising Jemdet Nasr 1988-1989 Project, Internet Archaeology 55. https://doi.org/10.11141/ia.55.10 The Dataset was generated through digital scanning of original Kodachrome diapositives employing a Canon EOS 80D camera with a TAMRON SP 90mm F/2.8 Di MACRO 1:1 272EE lens. Digital negatives were produced as .CR2 proprietary RAW files, which were subsequently filed and labelled by Mónica Palmero Fernández using a MacBook Pro 2018 laptop. The images were subsequently checked and processed by Mónica Palmero Fernández using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 9.1 Release Camera Raw 12.1. Lower-quality .jpg files were generated after post-processing for publication on the dedicated website. These files were limited to 72ppi and maximum file of 1.5MB. Finally, the original digital negatives were not altered, and metadata 'caddy' .xmp files were saved alongside the .CR2 digital negatives for future use, without damaging the integrity of the original files.