Extended Matrix in one page.

What it is

Extended Matrix (EM) is a formal language for documenting stratigraphy and virtual reconstruction processes in cultural heritage. It is a typed, graphical notation — stratigraphic units, sources, paradata, connectors — that archaeologists and heritage specialists can read, write and review by hand, and that machines can process at scale through the s3dgraphy Python library.

The project was started in 2015 around the reconstruction of the Great Temple of Sarmizegetusa and has since been adopted in dozens of research and professional projects. Extended Matrix is being developed (2025–2029) within the StratiGraph project, part of the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH).

Lead

EM is led by Emanuel Demetrescu at CNR-ISPC (Institute for Heritage Science, National Research Council of Italy, Rome — formerly CNR-ITABC).

Citation

EM uses a cumulative citation rule: always cite the 2015 foundation paper, then add the flag paper of the EM version you actually used (and a software DOI when relevant). The full guidance and BibTeX entries live on the dedicated How to cite EM page.

For the canonical bibliography and glossary of formal terms, see the References and Glossary pages of the language documentation.

Software DOI for quick reference:

@misc{demetrescu_extendedmatrix,
  title     = {Extended Matrix},
  author    = {Demetrescu, Emanuel},
  publisher = {Zenodo},
  doi       = {10.5281/zenodo.5957132},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5957132}
}

Licence

Software. All EM software components — the s3dgraphy library, EM Tools, 3DSC, Heriverse — are released under GPL-3.0-or-later. See the individual repositories on GitHub for the exact licence files.

Site content. The editorial content of this website — text, screenshots, diagrams — is released under CC BY-NC 4.0. Reuse is welcome for teaching, research and non-commercial remixing, with attribution. For commercial use, write to emanuel.demetrescu@cnr.it. Third-party logos in src/assets/logos/ belong to their respective owners and are used by permission.

Datasets. Examples, paradata bundles and case studies deposited on the Zenodo community carry their own licence, chosen by each contributor.

Privacy

extendedmatrix.org is a static informational site for a public-research project. We do not run analytics, do not set tracking cookies, and do not log visitors beyond what GitHub does at the infrastructure level. A small number of pages embed third-party content (YouTube, Zenodo). Full details and your GDPR rights are listed on the privacy notice.