The ancient city of Gadara with the modern Umm Qays is located in north-west Jordan, on the border with Syria and Israel. Recent archaeological surface investigations have shown that the area around Gadara has been continuously inhabited since the Palaeolithic period.

Gadara is home to architectural remains from the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Umayyad periods as well as the most recent history of Jordan at the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th century. For today's visitor, this place has a special atmosphere, and not only because of its long history of over 2000 years and its diverse architectural remains.

As part of the DAI's comprehensive archaeological and architectural history research, various capacity building measures and various national and international teams in the ancient city of Gadara, an extensive analogue archive has been created over the last five decades - consisting of photos and slides, plans and drawings as well as the associated documentation. They not only reflect the advances of the work on finds and findings on site, but also form an important source on the history of research in Gadara and the surrounding area. The digitisation of the archives began in 2018 with the aim of ensuring future-proof accessibility and presentation of the research material. The holdings are to be made accessible to researchers and all interested parties in a transparent and organised manner as part of a project page.

The digital Gadara archive currently comprises around 18,000 photos and slides from the years 1987 to 2002 and 625 plans and drawings from 1987 onwards. The data records are currently being entered into iDAI.world and an archive website for the presentation of the digitised archive materials is currently under construction.

The current status of the data records entered in iDAI.world can be retrieved via the image database iDAI.objects/arachne.