Whales in the Wall: A Scalable Cultural Digital Twin Infrastructure for Europe’s Ocean Heritage

Objectif

Europe is investing heavily in Digital Twins (DT) and ocean governance, yet cultural ocean heritage remains digitally documented but infrastructurally excluded. Archaeological, historical, environmental and societal knowledge are embodied in the objects part of coastal landscapes and architectures. These remains hold memory and information with potential to be integrated into operational digital systems. However, even though being at risk of destruction and forgetfulness, they are disconnected from ocean policy, territorial planning, and digital strategies. WHALE-TWIN approaches this problem by transforming objects into cultural DT for environmental governance and heritage safeguard. The goal is to produce a scalable digital infrastructure for (in)tangible ecocultural heritage from the ocean. Our starting point are the ‘whales in the walls’ of the houses of a medieval fishing village in central Portugal (Atouguia da Baleia) now a landlocked place. The PoC lies in demonstrating that even an old whale bone, lost in memory and with an unknown past, can become a node of information in large digital heritage ecosystems. By using multiple sets of data, methods from the environmental and digital humanities, and creative approaches, it will position archaeology and history at the forefront of Europe’s digital transformation. The final validated product is an interoperable and multilayered Whale Bone Digital Twin. A Minimum Viable Twin (one whale bone) will highlight potential of scalability and decision-making processes, and of supporting strategies of governance, preservation and safeguard of at-risk heritage. It will enable emotional relationships between people and the ocean. Through cross-sectorial stakeholders and end-users’ engagement, WHALE-TWIN will produce actionable knowledge with clear pathways for uptake, contributing to a more interconnected and digitally empowered heritage sector from local communities to the European level.