What PHOTARCH is, and why it exists
Archaeological artefact photography has no universal standard. An object documented at one institution looks different from the same type of object at another — different backgrounds, different lighting, different angles, different scales. The result is a visual record that cannot be compared.
This is not a minor inconvenience. It is a structural problem for research, conservation, and institutional memory.
PHOTARCH is a standardised photographic method for archaeological artefacts. Every object in the archive is documented using the same controlled setup: diffuse lighting, neutral white background, calibrated colour reference, physical scale. Views are defined — top, front, back, left, right, detail — so that the same object type is always documented the same way, regardless of who captures it or where.
The result is a visual dataset that behaves like data — not a gallery.
All objects documented to the PHOTARCH standard are entered into an open, machine-readable archive. Public access is free. Images and metadata can be referenced, cited, and downloaded without an account. The archive is built on persistent identifiers (NAAN 73195) so that references remain stable over time.
PHOTARCH is developed and operated by Arkeologibyrån, a registered trade name under DLD Daniel Lindskog Design, based in Ystad, Sweden. The project is led by Daniel Lindskog — photographer, archaeologist, and the originator of the standardisation method.
Commissions are accepted from museums, universities, and heritage organisations, primarily in Sweden but also internationally.
Every object in the PHOTARCH archive receives a persistent ARK identifier under NAAN 73195. These identifiers are designed to remain resolvable over the long term, independent of URL structure or platform changes.
Google OAuth on login and signup. Researcher role with gated TIFF downloads. Public downloads capped at 1 MB JPEG. Newsletter opt-in at signup. Live object and institution counts on auth panel.
Archive opened without login gate. Public landing page for guests. Invite a colleague flow. Math captcha on all public forms. Navigation progress bar. Feedback form on account page. Angle image upload flow.
Interactive map with location picker. Timeline slider on archive. Data model v2: fragment support, external identifiers, IIIF readiness. Mobile pinch-to-zoom.
Archive grid with filter and freetext search. Object detail page with hero, metadata, scale bar, and gallery. Comparison viewer with true relative scale. Downloads with scale bar. Colour extraction and colour search. Dark mode. Admin edit page.
Initial build: Next.js + Supabase. Authentication and admin dashboard. Ingest pipeline with bounding box editor, crop step, and automatic colour extraction.
Arkeologibyrån, a part of DLD · Org. nr 810717-4156 · info@photarch.com