Estimated timeframe: since 2020
Lead researcher: Núria Benavent and Virginia Salve
This project will catalogue and publicise a collection of 149 prints held at the National Archaeological Museum. These prints pertain to Monumentos Arquitectónicos de España, a state-funded series of volumes produced and published between 1852 and 1881 that was initially supervised by the Special School of Architecture and later by the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. In 1875 the project was handed over to the publisher José Gil Dorregaray, who was involved in the publication of as many as 32 monographs with explanatory texts, some of which are also in the museum's library. A total of 281 plates were made, 91 of which constitute an unfinished set as they were not printed in any monograph.
The copperplate engravings and lithographs, in both colour and black and white, generally feature elevations, plans and decorative and architectural details of monuments in different Spanish provinces.
Estimated timeframe: 2019-2025
Lead researcher: Aurora Ladero Galán
The aim of this project is to digitise and catalogue the records of the Higher Council for Excavations and Antiquities (Junta Superior de Excavaciones y Antigüedades or JSEA). Documents generated by this council were discovered when museum records were reorganised during the MAN renovation works. These documents were briefly identified and divided into different categories—correspondence, film stills, publications, reports, JSEA personnel attendance lists, registries, accounts, administrative files, etc.—and an inventory was drawn up, which makes it easier to locate the documents
Estimated timeframe: 2018-2025
Lead researcher: Aurora Ladero Galán
In addition to the work done with the catalogue cards, grouped by object inventory number, there is a large number of documents consisting of other entries organised according to different criteria: source, subject, location, etc. Many of them have been reviewed and included in a nearly 350-page-long inventory that provides access to their contents.
This project aims to digitise and catalogue those documents and, whenever possible, link them to their respective files and related museum holdings in the DOMUS system.
Estimated timeframe: 2014–2022
Lead researcher: Virginia Salve Quejido (previously Fernando Fontes Blanco-Loizelier and Javier Rodrigo del Blanco)
As part of the terminological standardisation campaign launched by the Spanish Ministry of Culture in the year 2000, this project aims to standardise the thesauri used to describe and catalogue museum holdings and documents in the MAN’s DOMUS app. The team is currently working on the Cultural Context and Generic Classification thesauri. Partial work has been done on the Thesaurus of Geographical Places, Authorities and Museum Relations, and the next one will be the Thesaurus of Materials, Media, Typology and Types of Documents.
Estimated timeframe: 2020–2022
Supervisors: Isabel Arias and Núria Benavent
This project aspires to highlight all the assets which, despite belonging to the permanent collection of the National Archaeological Museum, are currently on temporary loan to other museums or institutions. Some of these cultural assets have been on loan since the MAN was founded, while others are more recent loans requested by these institutions to refresh their museography in recent decades. The project also aims to publicise the MAN’s efforts to share its holdings and its active collaboration with other institutions. The possibility of creating a microsite on the MAN website with access to loaned items, organised by region and museum, will also be considered.
Estimated execution period: 2014-2021
Supervisors: Carmen Marcos Alonso, Virginia Salve Quejido, Concha Papí Rodes, Javier Rodrigo del Blanco y Begoña Muro Martín-Corral
La inauguración del nuevo Museo y la instalación en él de una sala dedicada a su historia ha supuesto la revisión de numerosa documentación de archivo, prensa y fotográfica antigua sobre sus contenidos. El proyecto pretende reunir toda esta información en una publicación completa y de referencia sobre la evolución y los distintos montajes de las salas de exposiciones permanentes, desde las existentes en el Casino de la Reina hasta la última instalación desmontada en 2007.
Estimated timeframe: 2010–2021
Lead researcher: Virginia Salve
In 1982, the family of Emilio Camps donated a collection of roughly two thousand lantern slides to the museum. Once consolidated and restored, they have been digitised and catalogued. The project aims to promote and highlight this part of the collection assembled by Emilio Camps for use in his educational and professional activities. Some are slides taken by Camps himself during a university cruise on the Mediterranean in 1933, which will round out our knowledge of this landmark educational trip. The remaining slides, by virtue of their characteristics, original photographers and dates (in some cases older than Camps), are exceptional records of the condition of Spain’s monumental heritage between 1880 and 1920.
Estimated timeframe: 2019-2020
Lead researcher: Virginia Salve, Isabel Arias y Núria Benavent
This project involves cataloguing and digitising unpublished photographs taken during the 1941 dig campaign. The majority document the excavation process, the methodology used and the exact composition of grave goods; as such, they are first-hand records of vital importance to researchers involved in the scientific study of this necropolis and the reconstruction of the excavation site.
These records will also complete the MAN’s collection of documents related to the four previous campaigns conducted in the 1930s, which have been studied and recently published by Luis Balmaseda and Isabel Arias.
Estimated timeframe: 2018-2020
Lead researcher: Virginia Salve
This project aims to catalogue and digitise photographic records, investigate their authorship, research the careers of confirmed photographers, and date the images.
Aside from the photographs of J. Laurent and those from the collections of archaeologists like Camps, Siret, Cerralbo, Cabré and Santa Olalla, the authorship of over five hundred photographs has been documented. These are attributed to major photographers or photo studios in Madrid, such as Moreno, Amador, Napoleón and Franzen; provincial photographers like Compañy, Zubillaga, Casiano Aguacil, Bestard i Cànaves, Pérez de Novoa, Ángel García Cardona and Pallejá; and even famous European photographers active in other countries, such as James Robertson in what is now Turkey.
Estimated timeframe: 2015–2020
Project leader: Aurora Ladero
Open themed catalogue dedicated to José Ramón Mélida Alinari, a renowned archaeologist and director of the National Archaeological Museum from 1916 to 1930. The catalogue contains a wide variety of documents, from Mélida’s correspondence with fellow archaeologists and intellectuals of the day and with members of his family to writings that reflect the organisation of his work and his scientific and literary interests. There are also photographs sent by scholars and friends or taken by Mélida himself on his trips to Egypt, Italy and other places, drawings and press clippings, and typed copies of dig reports from Numancia, Mérida and other excavations he led.
Estimated timeframe: 2011–2020
Lead researchers: Salomé Zurinaga, Aurora Ladero Galán and María Teresa Alonso Martín
This project entails separating the photographic assets from other documentation filed in the records archive since 1868, so that they can be properly preserved and subsequently inventoried, catalogued and digitised, with the ultimate aim of making them available to the public in the museum's online catalogue. Additionally, in the case of museum artefacts, the documentary holdings are being associated with the corresponding museographic holdings. To date, approximately 600 assets have been catalogued, pertaining to records since 1868 that illustrate the history of the museum’s collections and other processes related to their management.
Estimated timeframe: 2017-2019
Lead researcher: Virginia Salve
In 1991 the library and archival documentation of the art historian A. Blanco Freijeiro was acquired for the MAN. The photographic holdings comprise prints, negatives, transparencies, and preparatory material for publications, studies, and his work as a teacher and academic.
This intervention in the collection will allow us to examine its content and composition in detail, while its reorganisation and conservation will facilitate its future digitisation and cataloguing.
Estimated execution period: 2017-2019
Supervisor: Aurora Ladero Galán
Digitisation and cataloguing of a set of 310 catalogue index cards relating to the Junta del Tesoro Artístico (Artistic Heritage Board) and Servicio de Defensa del Patrimonio (Heritage Defence Service), and the exhibition held in the National Archaeological Museum in 1941, titled Orfebrería y Ropas de Culto (Liturgical Metalwork and Textiles).
Estimated execution period: 2017-2018
Supervisor: Javier Rodrigo del Blanco
In 1894 the MAN acquired more than a hundred photographs of the 1878 Paris Exposition by the photographic studio J. Laurent & Cía., in the form of albumin prints tinted with watercolours. They depict typical Spaniards, individually, in couples, grouped in genre scenes or representing trades, which had been exhibited in Paris and were later displayed in the MAN, in the lobby on the top floor leading to the ethnography galleries.
Their date, their documentary value, and the importance of their creator, make them exceptional documents in the sphere of photography and ethnography, and therefore after they have been restored, studied, catalogued, and digitised, they will be made available online in the form of a thematic online catalogue.
Estimated timeframe: 2012-2018
Lead researcher: Aurora Ladero Galán
The goal of this programme is to recover and organise all the information in the old inventory files of the museum’s collections and preclude the need to physically handle these documents. To date, a total of 33455 files have been digitised, all pertaining to what was formerly called Section Two, which includes the current Medieval Antiquities and Early Modern Era departments and Section One, now the departments of Prehistory, Protohistory, Greek and Roman Antiquities, and Egyptian and Near Eastern Antiquities.
Estimated timeframe::2010-2018
Lead researcher: Virginia Salve Quejido y Begoña Muro Martín Corral
From the time of the museum’s founding until 35mm polyester negatives became the norm, around 1960, the institution produced approximately 15,000 negatives on glass plates, acetate film and nitrate film which document its history and that of its artefacts. For conservation and safety reasons, these negatives are being digitised and catalogued in order to upload them to the museum’s general online catalogue and make them visible to the public.
Estimated execution period: 2016-2017
Supervisor: Virginia Salve and Mónica Martín
The project consists of cataloguing and digitising in DOMUS approximately 700 glass negatives and slides for “magic lanterns” with very diverse subject matter, which will be made available online for viewing on Cer.es.
Estimated execution period: 2015-2017
Supervisor: Javier Rodrigo del Blanco
This exhibition was the last of the three great commemorative exhibitions marking the opening of the Palacio de Biblioteca y Museos Nacionales, the building which now houses the M.A.N. The project will digitise, inventory and properly catalogue the 32 existing photographs and provide context in the form of additional texts on the architecture of the museum, the concept of Ethnography at the time of the Expo, how the exhibition was arranged, the criteria of the time, and the current location of the pieces shown, which are now scattered among several different institutions. The result will be the creation of a subsidiary website on “Collective Catalogues” and the online publication of a joint catalogue which will also include newspaper reports and other original documents from the period.
Estimated timeframe: 2014-2016
Lead researchers: Carmen Marcos Alonso, Aurora Ladero Galán y Concha Papí Rodes
Project with the aim of collecting news about the National Archaeological Museum, whether in the written press or audiovisual media. It will gather both news kept in the Museum Archive from 1869-2009, catalogued and digitised, and images and film about it kept in the Filmoteca Nacional (National Film Archive), including the state-produced, NO-DO newsreels. Into its second stage, after 2015, the search for news will be continued in the document collections of institutions like the National Library, the Municipal Newspaper Archive of Madrid, EFE News Agency, RTVE (Spanish Radio and Television Corporation) and other large nationwide television channels.
Estimated timeframe:: 2013-2016
Lead researcher: Virginia Salve Quejido
The National Archaeological Museum houses a vast, heterogeneous collection of archaeological cultural assets whose origins, provenances and methods of entry are quite different. The Documentation Department has decided to review the artefacts on long-term loan to this institution in order to quantify their number, identify the pieces within the collection, determine their legal status, and update their administrative information in the DOMUS program to facilitate proper management of these works.
Estimated timeframe:2011-2016
Lead researcher: Concha Papí Rodes
When a new exhibition design was created in the galleries in 1954, the then director Joaquín María de Navascués assigned curator Luis Vázquez de Parga the task of supervising the preparation of a location inventory of the pieces in their new positions. The result was 28 albums with photographs and lists, which were used as working tools until the layout was changed again in 1965. The project entails digitising approximately 5,000 documents, cataloguing their contents and associating the information contained in photographs and lists.
Estimated timeframe: 2010-2016
Lead researcher: Virginia Salve Quejido
This project involves cataloguing and digitising nearly four hundred albumen prints of Tunisian monuments, landscapes and cities that were exhibited in 1892. At the same time, research is also being conducted to determine where each photograph was taken and by whom, in order to correlate them with the lists of the exhibition catalogue and create a complete thematic online catalogue.
Estimated timeframe: 2015
Lead researcher: Fernando Fontes Blanco-Loizelier
Julio Martínez Santa-Olalla excavated the Roman site of Carteya from 1953 to 1961, although he never published any of his finds, and many of his photographs are held at the MAN. This project catalogued and digitised those photographs, invaluable aids for reconstructing his excavation methods and processes, contextualising certain artefacts and recreating a landscape that has since been substantially altered. The team from the Autonomous University of Madrid that is currently excavating Carteya and participating in the project also found these photographs tremendously helpful for understanding the site.
Estimated timeframe: 2014–2015
Lead researcher : Virginia Salve Quejido, Fernando Fontes Blanco-Loizelier and Begoña Muro Martín-Corral
This project entailed cataloguing and digitising approximately 400 photographs of excavations supervised by Julio Martínez Santa-Olalla between 1944 and 1950 at this Argaric settlement and necropolis, as well as transcribing and publishing the field journal and several drawings of Louis Siret’s excavation in 1886. These unpublished records provided valuable background information on the site for the team from the Autonomous University of Barcelona that is currently leading the excavation of La Bastida, and which collaborated on this project by helping to identify some of the documentary assets. The catalogue was completed with articles on Argaric culture and the photographic methods and biographies of the excavators.
Estimated timeframe: 2014-2015
Lead researcher: Virginia Salve Quejido
In preparation for the upcoming reopening of the museum and the launch of its new website and virtual tour, we are working to make all of the artefacts on display available to the public: approximately 15,000 items will be accessible, with different levels of information and images visible in CER.ES, the collective catalogue of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport.
Estimated timeframe: 2013-2015
Lead researcher: Aurora Ladero Galán y Concha Papí Rodes
Continuing with the lengthy process of identifying the contents of the Siret Archive, analysing its overall state of conservation, digitising the documents and cataloguing them on DOMUS, this program aims to present all this information in the form of a thematic online catalogue. The documentation will be classified by archive documentary series and will make a total of 2,819 documents with 31,320 images available to online viewers.
Estimated timeframe: 2011-2015
Lead researcher: Javier Rodrigo del Blanco
The major overhaul of the museum’s facilities has modified its internal distribution, making it necessary to create a new layout structure adapted to this new physical context. These new spaces have been equipped with furniture that is better suited to our new criteria governing the display and conservation of cultural assets. This project addresses the need to identify each space so that the artefacts can be located accurately and quickly.
Estimated timeframe: 2007-2015
Lead researcher: Virginia Salve Quejido y Sonsoles Espinós Ortigosa (I.N.A.P.)
In 1930 Emilio Camps, curator at the museum, set out on an educational tour of Italy and France. During his travels he kept a detailed journal, with sketches and photographs, and collected approximately 2,000 postcards (some produced from his own photographs) of the objects, monuments and places he visited. This project involves cataloguing and digitising all that documentation, as well as transcribing the travel journal and publishing it in digital format along with a critical analysis and commentary.