DESCRIPTION OF THE TIKAL ARCHIVE
The majority of the materials contained in the Tikal Archive are primary documents generated by the Tikal Project between 1956 and 1970. The archive measures 292 linear feet. These materials include:

Click image to enlarge
and view details

In addition to being the only existing copy of the survey and architectural data, these materials represent the documentation for all the artifactual remains recovered during UPM excavations now housed in Guatemala at the Morley Museum in the Tikal National Park and in the National Museum in Guatemala City.

The Tikal Archive also contains copies of secondary records, such as:

• published and unpublished papers that resulted from analyses of data from 1970 to the present
• drafts of unpublished Tikal Reports
• a library of international publications concerning Tikal (combined, 39 linear feet)
• the Linton Satterthwaite Library (55 linear feet)
• slide collections donated to the archive by Tikal Project members after 1970
• Museum administrative records related to the Tikal Project (housed in Central Archives)
• a unique collection of sketches of camp life by artist and architect Alfred Bendiner in 1960 when he and his wife were at Tikal to participate in the architectural survey of the North Acropolis (housed in Central Archives)

PHASES OF THE TIKAL DIGITAL ACCESS PROJECT (TDAP)
In collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania's Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image, TDAP is in the process of developing a fully-functional pilot online archive. Using all of the documentation from Tikal Project Operation 3B - the investigations carried out by William Haviland in the elite residential group 7F - this pilot will demonstrate our vision for the completed online archive. Users will be able to search the archive based on keywords, guided keywords, or by browsing. Search results will be returned in the form of links to digital facsimiles of the original documents. Currently in development are the archaeological thesaurus that will drive these searches (the metadata) and the programming of the internal, web-based cataloging system and the user interfaces.

At present, four major phases are planned for the project beyond the pilot. During the first phase, searchable and browsable access to the content of approximately 55,000 catalog cards will be made available online. Online access to the card catalog will be an immediately useful online research tool for Maya scholars, serving as a gateway to the rest of the contents of the Tikal archive. Because the card catalog indexes all other documents in the archive, scholars will be able to request access to not yet digitized documents in the archive based on their card catalog searches.

Future phases of the project will involve digitization of primary documents, the image collections, and finally, secondary documents. Ultimately, the online archive will mimic the organization of the original archive and be openly accessible on the web. Anyone doing research on Temple II, for example, would be able to search based on a number of keywords and return results for specific or all related documentation.

• a database of sample images from the photographic archive, funded by FAMSI and available on their website
• a fully-functional "proof of concept" (pilot online catalog) in collaboration with the Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image at the University of Pennsylvania
• a complete inventory of the Tikal Archive
• the stabilization of the slide collection
  

TECHNICAL DETAILS
Following are some details about work in progress:

Digital file naming conventions
Acronyms and abbreviations

Please check back here for updates.