LISROP: A New Platform for the Spatial Analysis of Massive Archaeological and Historical Information (a Work in Progress)

LISROP (Land of Israel Study and Research Online Platform) is an online, bilingual, English-Hebrew, integrative platform (under construction) aiming to allow scholars and interested non-academics to review a vast amount of archaeological and historical data from the land of Israel, explore it and dissect in various ways, and then analyze it using sophisticated GIS tools, some of which were specifically developed for the platform. The platform can be used for various types of studies and can be expanded thematically and spatially beyond its current limits by incorporating additional databases and applications and providing information on nature, culture, and heritage, furthering study and research into these areas. The paper briefly presents the project’s background, history, development, and current aims. It then describes the platform and its components, including the geographical foundations on which the data is studied, the archaeological and historical data it incorporates, and the various GIS components it includes. The paper then outlines the platform’s potential, capacity to advance research on several levels, and expected relevance for non-academics. Toward the end, the paper briefly describes some of the major challenges we encountered in our work and potential avenues for expanding the platform.