iCHeriSH

Swat Valley, the hill of Barikot
(view from SW)

Swat Valley, the shrine of Gumbat
(view from W)

The Buddhist site of Tapa Sardar seen from the plain

A Buddha head from a colossal clay statue
(Tapa Sardar, excavation photo)

Buddhist site of Tapa Sardar,
cultic Room 75

Indian village musicians

  Maina speaks to the caravan man
  Laur Chanda, ca. 1450-75. Gouache on paper.
Bharat kala Bhavan, BKB 226. Varanasi.

The heroin elopes
Laur Chanda (or Chandayana) of Mulla Da'ud. India, Delhi-Jaunpur (Uttar Pradesh), ca. 1450-75. Bharat kala Bhavan, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.

with the support of

with the collaboration of

iCHeriSH is an online resource for South Asian cultural heritage documentation, education and dissemination financed by the Italian Ministry for Universities (MUR) and based at the University of Naples “L’Orientale” (Naples) and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. The project has been conceived in the framework of the social disruption created globally by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has also affected university education, making e-learning a requirement. The platform, in the form of a mobile app (initially android, next phase iPhone) and a webapp, aims to provide a cultural/pragmatic response for this and any future disruptions by creating a flexible tool for education, training, research and dissemination activities, at the same time improving the quality of online didactic material against the spread of misinformation on the internet. Available only for students, researchers and teachers in the first stage, it eventually aims to be an online multimedia exhibition space for a “crowdsourcing” of the ancient South Asian tangible and intangible heritage (archeology, epigraphy, history and side histories). The project covers modern geographical areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan as well as other countries that may have with the latter cultural and historic links (Tibet, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand etc.), and aims to grow as a collaborative network with the objective of the involvement of other universities and research units, especially from the target countries, also in order to:

incentivize interactive learning as well as experience in developing and cataloguing resources for digital humanities by engaging students in the creation of contents;
assist archaeological missions in publicizing their work as a source of updating grounded in the best scientific evidence;
assist universities in conflict/post conflict realities to train their students in documentation of cultural heritages highly exposed to the risks for loss;
assist documentation of neglected or unprotected sites/artefacts as a tool for contrasting robbery and illicit trafficking of cultural property;
open up an experimental space of encounters between academic studies and local histories, by engaging local communities in innovative processes of knowledge creation and sharing dedicated to the pluri-stratified “biography” of cultural heritage, in a participatory "Third Mission" approach. (the University's social and community outreach program)
Initiate an innovative crowd-sourcing method at conserving historic material and promoting the engagement of youth in it as well as the use of social media in the dissemination of the same.

Anna Filigenzi
the Principal Investigator of the project, is Associate Professor in Indian archaeology and art history at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”. She is the director of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Afghanistan since 2004, and a member of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan since 1984.

Stefania Cavaliere
a member of the project, is Associate Professor of Hindi Language and Literature at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”. Her main fields of research are Hindi court poetry from the 16-17th centuries, classical Indian aesthetics and the role of translations in the multilingual context of the Mughal court.

Luca Maria Olivieri
(Sitara-i-Imtiaz, Pakistan), a member of the project, is Professor of Archaeology of Gandhara at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, and Director of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan (ISMEO/Ca' Foscari).

Annalisa Bocchetti
deals with materials related to the “Side Histories”. She received her Ph.D. in Asian, African and Mediterranean Studies from the University of Naples “L’Orientale”. She earned her MA at the same institution, focusing on North Indian narrative traditions. She is also member of the European Association of South Asian Studies (EASAS).

Roberta Gooni
deals with cartographic issues and translation into English of unpublished catalogues’ entries. She graduated in Archaeology of India and Central Asia at the University of Naples "L'Orientale". She currently cooperates with the Research Institute "IRIAE" and is a member of the BE-ARCHAEO team. She has taken part in numerous excavation missions in Italy and abroad and is currently involved in preventive archaeology excavations in places at risk in Campania (South Italy).

Ginevra Palmeri
deals with the data-entry regarding the archaeological materials from Afghanistan and Pakistan. She is a master's student of Archaeology of India and Central Asia at the University of Naples "L'Orientale". She has participated in several excavations and collaborated with the Czech Archaeological Expedition in Uzbekistan, the French Archaeological Delegation in Afghanistan, and the Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan.

Giulia Forgione
collaborates in the project as a coordinator of the data-entry. She is Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”, where she also graduated in Archaeology and received her PhD. She is a member of the Italian Archaelogical Mission in Afghanistan since 2014. Her research area is the Archaeology and History of Art of Central Asia, with particular focus on the clay and stucco sculpture of pre-Islamic Afghanistan.

Vas Shenoy
is an entrepreneur, political analyst and is currently pursuing a degree in Sanskrit and Indian Studies at the University of Naples “L’Orientale”. He works on creative ways to integrate technology with history and ancient Indian language studies, which is his role in this project. He has studied for a degree in Philosophy and History at the University of Mumbai and is an alumnus of the United World College of the Adriatic, Duino, Italy. He is a member of the Associazione Italiana di Studi Sanscriti (AISS) and the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI).

Francesco Sacerdoti
collaborates in the project as an expert of ICT. Master Degree in Electronic Engineer with honours, is specialized in design and realization of complex measurement and control systems, image analysis and multimedia applications. Adjunct Professor of Sound Engineering at Federico II (Telecommunications and Digital Media Engineering) He has 6 patents plus 4 patent pendings, he developed the Ground Control Centers for 4 Space Shuttle missions, he designed and developed hundreds of measurement systems for large industries and research institutions. Certified LabVIEW Architect and Certified Professional Instructor for National Instruments He is Adjunct Professor at Temple University, Department of Biology. He was Teacher at the Apple Developer Academy of Naples and he worked at CERN developing complex Real Time & FPGA systems.

Ignazio Finizio
collaborates in the project as an expert of ICT. Ignazio Finizio is an electronic engineer and is specialized in design and realization of management systems for companies and institutions and in design and realization of web systems and services. He has designed and developed over one hundred computer systems. He is certified by Apple Inc. (Cupertino – U.S.A) as an “Apple Certified Trainer“. In the last 20 years, he has been adjunct professor of: Elementi di Informatica, Complementi di Informatica, Calcolatori Elettronici I, Tecnologie dei sistemi informatici: basi di dati e reti, at University Federico II and of “Coding” at the Apple Foundation Parthenope, a partnership between Apple Inc and University Parthenope. He was also Teacher at the Apple Developer Academy of Naples.

Marco Finadri
is a Mobile Consultant who designs and develops Mobile App. He graduated in Computer Engineering at the University of Sannio and he also graduated from the Apple Developer Academy in Naples. He is certified as Android Developer from Google after completing two scholarship known as Google Developer Nanodegree Scholarship. During his career he has created apps in different areas: from blockchain to cryptos, from e-commerce to telemedicine, from wearables to tourism to the transport sector and much more.