Heritage Digital Twins Beyond Modelling

Creating Researchable Cultural Heritage with Open-Source Tools

Daniel Antal
finnougric.net Finno-Ugric Data Sharing Space Open-Source Tools Workshop

Abstract

At EADH2026 we present our conference paper and poster on creating Heritage Digital Twins from dispersed cultural knowledge using open-source tools.

Date
Sep 16, 2026 11:00 AM — 12:30 PM
Event
EADH2026 European Association for Digital Humanities Conference
Location
Jagiellonian University
al. Adama Mickiewicza 9, Kraków, 33-332

At EADH2026 in Kraków, we present our conference paper and poster on creating Heritage Digital Twins with open-source tools.

Our work starts from a practical problem: knowledge about a cultural object is often dispersed across museum collections, archives, libraries, research publications, photographs, websites, and different languages. Rather than replacing these sources with a single database or ontology, we investigate how they can be connected into reviewable and interoperable digital representations.

The conference paper develops the methodological approach. We treat the Heritage Digital Twin not simply as a model of a heritage object, but as a research environment in which documentary evidence can be brought together, claims can be reviewed, and provenance, uncertainty, rights, and governance can remain explicit.

The accompanying poster, From Fragmented Heritage to Federated Digital Twins: Results from the Finno-Ugric Data Sharing Space, demonstrates this approach with dispersed Finno-Ugric cultural heritage collections. It shows how open-source and standards-based tools can reconnect materials held by different institutions without requiring their collections to be centralised. Download: 10.5281/zenodo.22807041
The accompanying poster, From Fragmented Heritage to Federated Digital Twins: Results from the Finno-Ugric Data Sharing Space, demonstrates this approach with dispersed Finno-Ugric cultural heritage collections. It shows how open-source and standards-based tools can reconnect materials held by different institutions without requiring their collections to be centralised. Download: 10.5281/zenodo.22807041

Conference contributions

  • European Association for Digital Humanities 2026. Linking Europe: Digital Humanities Without Borders. Book of Abstracts. 10.5281/zenodo.22078031.
  • Presentation of our conference paper: Heritage Digital Twins Beyond Modelling. Download PDF.
  • Poster: From Fragmented Heritage to Federated Digital Twins: Results from the Finno-Ugric Data Sharing Space. 10.5281/zenodo.22807041
digital twin cultural heritage open source semantic web
Daniel Antal
Daniel Antal
Co-founder