Progress of the Digital Silk Roads project

NII launched the Digital Silk Roads (DSR) project in cooperation with UNESCO as an international joint research project at NII in April 2001. In December 2001, at a the Tokyo symposium for Digital Silk Roads jointly organized by NII and UNESCO, the Tokyo Declaration was issued. The second International Symposium for the Digital Silk Roads was held at Nara in December 2003. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) between UNESCO and NII was signed by the Directors General of UNESCO and NII in March 2003. Under this MOU, the Digital Silk Roads Initiative Framework (DSRIF) was established as a coordination mechanism for promotion of the Project. The Bamiyan Remains in Afghanistan were archived as the Bamiyan Virtual Museum before being dynamited. Digital archiving of various historical documents, including rare books in the possession of the Toyo Bunko in Tokyo, was carried out. An Advanced Scientific Portal for International Cooperation on the Digital Silk Roads(ASPICO-DSR) was developed to provide a platform for collaboration of Digital Silk Roads studies. Ontology of caravanserais in Central Asia and 3D virtual restoration of the Citadel of Bam are currently being researched. This paper presents the progress of the Digital Silk Roads project conducted at NII, reporting on the objectives, targeted areas, program concept, architecture, and implementation by reviewing its past achievements. Ch.1 gives an introductory remarks by K.Ono. Ch.2 overviews of the Digital Silk Roads project by K.Ono Ch.3 describes the digital archive of the rare books on Silk Road in the possession of the Toyo Bunko by T.Yamamoto and S.Sato. Ch.4 presents the virtual restoration of the Bamiyan ruins using DIS technology by T.Kamiuchi. Ch.5 report on the DSR portal sites and its structure by A. Kitamoto . Ch.6 describes the architecture and metadata management of the ASPICO portal by K.Ono. Ch.7 describes resources management techniques by F.Andres. Ch.8 discusses Spacial-Lexical Knowledge Model for the Silk Roads caravanserais by E. Andaroodi. Ch.9 concludes this report with a discussion of perspectives on the future by K.Ono