www.scuoladipitagora.it; IX International Forum Le Vie dei Mercanti ; Aversa, Capri, june 9, 10, 11 2011 ; Carmine Gambardella (gen. chair)

The historic centre of Bukhara (Uzbekistan) is one of the most important historical urban fabrics in Central Asia. In 1993, UNESCO declared the old city, comprised of 462 architectural monuments that vary between different types of religious and domestic architecture, a World Cultural Heritage Site. Many of these buildings are documented in numerous written sources as well as in historical photographs, sketches and architectural drawings. However, it is often difficult to access this information as it has never been systematically filed. Yet the Digital Monument Archive (DMA) provides the opportunity to gather and save the different types of data, using a plan-based inventory system in combination with various search options. The Khoja Zainuddin Mosque, the subject of a German-Uzbek joint research project, presents a challenging example of a project that addresses new problems and asks for specific requirements in its DMA, due to its cultural context. The adapted version of the DMA allows the building to be located within its urban context as well as the possibility to zoom into details as small as a particular stone in the building. In addition, the combination of textual and visual identification options facilitates queries as it helps avoiding any emerging problems related to the different languages or disciplines involved. The translation of the DMA software into Russian further enables transfer and exchange of information on a larger scale.