The project THANADOS – The Anthropological and Archaeological Database of Sepultures, funded by the go!digital Next Generation call of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, was led by Nina Richards and Stefan Eichert and was carried out at the Austrian Archaeological Institute (ÖAI) and the Natural History Museum Vienna (NHM). In 2021, the application was transferred to the NHM and continues to operate there. The application is entirely open source and the code is available via GitHub under the MIT license. 

The project deals with the digital collection and presentation of Early Medieval cemeteries in the area of present day Austria. Within the project hitherto published information on Early Medieval burials was digitized and translated to English language. The data are mapped using the CIDOC CRM and provided online. The information can be explored via a digital catalog and within an interactive map. Cartographic visualizations as well as charts and plots are created dynamically based on real archaeological research data. It aims at providing a best practice way on how to disseminate archaeological sources and research in the 21st century against the background of digital humanities. At the end of the project, the application was transformed into a community-driven platform on which other projects can also present their results. The data presented is expanded to include other geographical and temporal areas. The project is actively carried on within further cooperations and new sites are added continuously.

The ACDH acts as a cooperation partner for the project via OpenAtlas, a database software that enables the collection, processing and management of research data and serves as the basis for the project’s web application.