MEMOAr focuses on a key element of research in building archaeology: the dating of construction phases. Currently, the study of lime mortars allows us to distinguish these phases but not to date them. The 14C dating method for lime mortars gives unreliable results because these are very heterogeneous materials: they can contain several sources of carbon which lead to dating errors. It is therefore necessary to identify and select the carbonates that really crystallized during the setting of the mortar in order to extract the right carbon to date. The identification and characterization of mortars is therefore an essential preliminary step before any dating in order to assess the risks of errors and the validity of the date obtained. We propose an innovative method combining the precise identification of areas containing neoformed carbonates by LIBS (Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy) imaging, and the targeted extraction of carbon by laser ablation at high spatial resolution. Artificial intelligence will be used to create masks and drive targeted extraction on selected areas. The amount of residual 14C will then be measured by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS). The first experiments carried out by the team members have enabled the design of the prototype and the validation of the concept. The dating tests will be carried out both on experimental samples (developed in the laboratory and of known composition) and on samples from sites already dated by cross-dating methods (ancient and medieval sites from different French regions). All dating elements will be discussed and integrated into a Bayesian analysis that will allow us to rigorously validate the results obtained. MEMOAr relies on a consortium of archaeologists, archaeometers, physicists, chemists and materials specialists (Lyon1, Lyon2, Bordeaux-Montaigne and CNRS). A researcher from the Royal Institute for Artistic Heritage in Brussels will also be consulted as an expert advisor. We plan to recruit a doctoral student (3 years) and a post-doctoral student (1 year) with interdisciplinary profiles. The project will provide methodological tools dedicated to lime dating, accessible within an internationally open platform (ILMTech technological and scientific platform). All the data produced will be available in a dedicated space currently being developed within the Equipex+ project, ESPADON-PATRIMEX+. This database will be open and accessible to all. The entire archaeological community will thus have access to high-performance tools for dating lime mortars.

Context/background: The lack of proficiency in academic language for the study of the specialist sector often constitutes an obstacle to student mobility and may limit the acquisition of theoretical, technical and professional knowledge during the period of the Erasmus stay in the host institution. This is especially true in the field of Architecture and Construction (AC), where training covers a number of technical sub-fields which are often defined by professional practices, cultural traditions and legal frameworks which are specific to a given country. In such a scenario, while English is still widely used as a lingua franca, proficiency in the national language becomes crucial for removing linguistic and cultural barriers that can hinder the training/learning process and/or discourage student mobility across Europe.Objectives: The project aims at creating academic-professional language modules for French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish as a foreign language in the field of AC with a view to encourage student mobility and to improve the outcomes of mobility programs.Participants: The project sees participation of members of five Higher Education institutions with extensive teaching and research experience in the fields of Applied Linguistics, Teaching Foreign Languages, Corpus Linguistics and Language Learning/Teaching Technology: University “G.d’Annunzio” (UdA), Chieti-Pescara (Italy); Masaryk University (MU), Brno (Czech Republic); Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), Madrid (Spain); University of Bordeaux Montaigne (UBM), Bordeaux (France); Polotsk State University (PSU), Polotsk (Belarus). One private enterprise, Internet Web Solutions (IWS), based in Málaga (Spain), is the IT partner of the project, already active in several Strategic Partnerships projects for the development of open-access resources.Activities: The project will develop in two main stages. In the first stage (Intellectual Output 1), consultation with (academic and professional) stakeholders will allow mapping of AC sub-fields and communicative settings which currently constitute an impediment to student and professional mobility. The results of this consultation will inform the creation of language corpora (i.e., digital collections of texts) comprising FRENCH, GERMAN, ITALIAN, RUSSIAN and SPANISH texts representative of professional and academic communication in AC. In the second stage (Intellectual Output 3), each partner university will develop innovative language teaching modules for AC in French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish, which will be made freely available online for testing and subsequent use by mobility students at partner Universities. Throughout the project, IT partner IWS will develop, test and update the Open Educational Resources (OER) platform which will beused to distribute resources created within SEAH (Intellectual Output 2).Methodology: The project relies on the use of a variety of methods at each stage, including: semi-automatic creation and annotation of language corpora; automatic extraction of linguistic (lexical, morphological, syntactic and pragmatic) features to inform the learning materials; OER-Platform implementation and testing; survey-based methods for data collection and analysis.Results, impact and long term benefits: The innovative language learning materials created within the project will:- closely address the learning needs of trainees in the field as reported by involved stakeholders;- standardize training practices in this field across the five languages covered in the project, while still attending to culture-specific aspects;- promote students' motivation, autonomy and active engagement in the learning process through the use of a variety of media and IT tools as well as access to the electronic corpora;- guarantee free access to high-quality, research-informed training to the public.The methods, criteria and tools used for creating language learning materials will contribute to more effective and motivating training for mobility students, making them more confident in undertaking international efforts (in their training years and, subsequently, in their professional career). In the longer term, this will result in greater participation in (and more positive outcomes for) mobility programs, creating better career opportunities for young EU citizens. Free access to the Open Educational Resource (OER)-platform will also provide lifelong learning opportunities for professionals looking to collaborate with companies and individuals abroad, thus promoting use of the resources by larger pools of users beyond academia.Finally, the availability of multilingual language learning material can greatly contribute to enhancing visibility and more wide-spread knowledge of French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish architectural heritage and the professional practices associated with it, promoting national cultural valorization in international settings.

The ALEAM (Atlas of the Landed Estates in Ancient Maghreb) project aims to comprehensively study the large landholdings of ancient North Africa, a region often considered the granary of Rome. We will ask how a world empire became dependent on this one region (along with Egypt) for wheat and why North Africa managed to distinguish itself from the rest through its large agricultural estates. Indeed, according to literary sources, a large part of Africa was occupied by extraterritorial estates, i.e. not belonging to the territories of the cities. If imperial estates have been studied in recent projects, the extraterritorial landed properties of private individuals, which preceded them and with which the imperial property coexisted throughout its history, have never been the subject of a global study. We propose two lines of work in order to fill this gap. On the one hand, we will proceed with the creation of the database that will give rise to the atlas of the landed estates of the ancient Maghreb. It will be based mainly on epigraphic, but also archaeological and literary sources. Its digital structure will be the adaptation of an existing open source software where, in a relational database, records of documents, individuals and sites will be linked, allowing the consultation of objective data. A committee of specialists in African antiquity will follow the work of creating and filling the database/atlas by means of two meetings. On the other hand, we will organise workshops with internationally renowned researchers on four main themes, namely the origin of this African peculiarity and its latest expressions at the end of Antiquity, the organisation of production in large private estates, the role played by women in these estates and the comparison with other regions of the Roman world where large landholdings proliferated.

"The project ""Media-practices of the Enlightenment"" combines study programmes and research clusters at the four partner sites. It follows a blended mobility strategy to develop new forms of international training that combine ICT elements with local and networkwide training activities with regard to future joint curricular accreditation.The thematic focus of the project takes on recent developments in Enlightenment research to understand the Enlightenment not so much as a fixed set of 18th century ideas but rather as an ongoing process of media-practices with the aim of public reason based critique and societal reforms. The European Republic of Letters of the Enlightenment developed medial formats from handwritten European newsletters like the ""Correspondance Littéraire"" and collective knowledge storages such as the ""Encyclopédie"" which can be seen as predecessors of current transnational medial forms and practices. The Enlightenment thus plays a crucial role in the establishment of a trans-national European public sphere with regards to ongoing debates and future developments.The partner-structure builds upon complementary competences in relevant aspects of the project with regard to archives, infrastructure and expertises e.g. in Digital Humanities and mirrors with academic and non-academic partners from France, Germany, and the Baltic states Latvia and Estonia a historical space of important cultural transfer processes. The project follows inter- and trans-disciplinary methods, methods from Digital Humanities, and approaches from transnational ""entangled history"" and cultural transfer research.At least 20 lecturers and 100 students will actively contribute to the training activities such as an Intensive Study Programme, internationally co-taught-Seminars, electronic lectures and courses, practice oriented participation in the production of exhibitions, data-bases, and digital libraries. Within the pilot project of an internationally supervised joint Master-Class a paradigm of future Joint MA-programmes is tested. Related to four Erasmus+ strategic priorities the measures of the programme will strengthen mobility of students and lecturers, develop new ICT-based teaching methods and internationalized curricula, and thus foster the excellence of study programmes and academic as well as non-academic employability.Intellectual Outputs such as a webplatform with integratet mooc-/moodle-system, exhibitions, web- and video-presentations, and a final book compendium will be disseminated via well-established platforms and networks of related non-academic institutions such as museums, libraries, and media companies. The dissemination strategy is grounded in the examination of transnational media-practices which will be used in the outreach activities of the project. The project thus proposes a sustainable contribution to ongoing public discussions on the European heritage of the Enlightenment."