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 preparation of the RIIG (Recueil informatisé des inscriptions gauloises) aims to produce a critical and commented edition of the Gaulish texts known to date, in order to constitute a complete synthesis of knowledge on Gaulish epigraphy and language. The work carried out on the inscriptions aims to place them in an archaeological, historical and social context in order to study the place of writing and to question the modalities of self-representation of the Gaulish populations through their language, in the public domain of the city capitals but also of the secondary agglomerations, an approach that has never been taken until now. Our approach will be fully epigraphic, i.e. it will closely link archaeological and linguistic data in order to have as complete a picture as possible for the socio-linguistic analysis of the texts studied.