Alternative authorities:New media, an ancient city, and the art of interpretation

This paper engages the emerging, and in fact already contentious, debate concerning the role of the digital humanities in academia. While scholars have certainly accepted it as a powerful way to archive and manage content, many have questioned whether digital humanities can produce insightful academic interpretations. As historians, we are interested in both uses of digital technology, but in this paper we address the potential it holds for contributing to our interpretation of heritage sites. Using a digital reconstruction of the northern parts of the ancient Indian city of Sirkap (located in modern Pakistan, fl. circa 150 BCE – 150 CE), we provide an example of how employing digital technology can move us beyond archiving and managing content and meaningfully contribute to our interpretation of the past.