Originally Published 19 February 2003

An innovative collaborative project led by the University of Warwick is aiming to provide new ways to access and use resources about ancient Greece and Rome.

The Antiquity Related Collections Harnessed for Educational Scenarios (ARCHES) project will imaginatively re-purpose a range of materials on ancient Greece and Rome for three educational contexts (FE, HE, and an International Online Resource), three subject areas (Theatre Studies, Classics, VR Modelling) and seven modules.

The project will make available for national use new and existing collections of exciting digital resources relating to ancient Greece and Rome prepared by the School of Theatre Studies at the University of Warwick over the course of five years. These exciting materials, which include 3-D models and Virtual Reality objects, were developed from research projects led by Professor Richard Beacham and Dr Hugh Denard.

The substantial new collection of Virtual Reality objects resources will be of immense value to disciplines such as Classics, the Performing Arts, Art History, Architecture, IT Modelling, and others. No other VR objects of such high quality or pedagogical value currently freely exist in the public domain. In addition, thanks to a number of recent grants from the University of Warwick, project members in Classics and Theatre Studies have created a collection of 1,500 original digital images of Roman artefacts. Through this project, these two collections will become freely available to FE, HE and international educational sectors for the first time.

ARCHES is a collaborative project between the University of Warwick’s School of Theatre Studies, Centre for Academic Practice and IT Services elab together with City College Coventry. The project, which started in January this year, has been funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) under the Exchange for Learning Programme (X4L).

For more information, see the ARCHES web site: www.warwick.ac.uk/ETS/arches/