Digital Heritage Mapping

Digital Heritage Mapping is a start-up 501(c)(3) non-profit specializing in virtual documentation of global cultural heritage sites. Our flagship initiative, Diarna, "Our Homes" in Judeo-Arabic, explores the unfolding of Jewish history through the prism of physical location. Diarna digitizes individual sites (schools, cemeteries, synagogues, shrines) utilizing new geo-mapping and database technologies. By way of immersive panoramics, three-dimensional architectural modeling, archival and contemporary photography, oral history recordings, satellite imagery, and other documentation, Diarna ensures untrammeled access to often endangered sites. In the process, we are creating novel opportunities to integrate existing digitized archives and explore forgotten history, from Saharan outposts in southern Morocco to remote Kurdish villages in Iran. Diarna brings together an unusual coalition of scholars, international photographers, social entrepreneurs, technical developers, and young Middle Easterners eager to map virtual common ground. Driven by a team with diverse backgrounds (including young Muslims eager to discover shared history), Diarna eschews politics to focus on collecting and making accessible factual information.