distributing the wealth
DESCRIPTION
Coins and Medals 150th anniversary conference paperTRANSCRIPT
Distributing the wealth
Knowledge transfer in numismaticsDaniel Pett
[email protected] / @portableantfinds.org.uk
Coins & Medals 150th Anniversary Conference 18.2.2011
Numismatic data banks
World wide web….
NUMIDAT
OAI – PMH: UK databases
Build your own collection
15 minute coin repository build
• Import data via OAI-PMH into Omeka opensource CMS• Not many coin resource OAI endpoints available
NUDS – Numismatic Database Standard
• NUDS is a set of suggested field names for recording numismatic information in a column-oriented database.
• It is designed to capture information as it currently exists in databases deployed by museums and collectors in “real world” situations.
• It is flexible in that it can represent objects for which only very generic information is known or objects that have been described in detail.
• It does not mandate a set of required fields.
• Was created at an AHRC workshop here at the British Museum
Innovation
Multi period
Multiple object types
Heavy reliance on public donating their information for research
Integrates social media and 3rd party technology
Multiple extraction methods for integration externally
Portable Antiquities Scheme data
Broad period Quantity
Iron Age 42,217
Greek & Roman 168
Roman 163,657 *
Byzantine 94
Early Medieval 2,242
Medieval 27,075
Post Medieval 19,864
Modern 171
Unknown 396
Total 255,784
Percentage 37.6% are coins
IRON AGE
GREEK AND ROMAN PROVINCIAL
ROMAN
BYZANTINE
EARLY MEDIEVAL
MEDIEVAL
POST MEDIEVAL
MODERN
UNKNOWN
* S. Moorhead informs me that this figure exceeds Reece’s 1991 corpus of site finds by 10,000
Measuring engagement
Metric Volume
Visits 371,308
Page views 4,233,094
Visitors 210,592
Pages per visit 11.4
Metric Volume
Registered users 2,580
Contributors 18,606
Research projects 229
Total objects 680,273
PAS web use 2010
PAS people statistics
Public & professional recording
High resolution images
All coins recorded
Isle of Wight coins
CCI vs PAS data - Overlap
Comparing IARCW vs PAS
Venetian soldino find spots
Since Adam Daubney won the Jeffrey May award in 2010 the first instances of the Doges Dandelo and Foscari have been recorded.
P. Walton PhD research [AHRC]Key Outcomes
• When did Republican coins arrive in Britain –pre or post Conquest? Conclusion being that the overwhelming majority were first century military losses.
• Where, when and by whom were Claudiancopies used? Conclusion being military use at first but continued use by wider population into 2nd century AD.
• Where is ‘C’ mint in the reigns of Carausius and Allectus? Conclusion is we don’t know as coinage circulates far too quickly and widely to use mint marks as a way of locating the mint.
• Is 4th century a period of decline in Roman Britain? Can chart shrinkage in coin use inwards throughout 4th century...
• Transformed understanding of coin use and loss in the Isle of Wight: located 30 new archaeological ‘sites’ using clusters of coin evidence.
• Piercebridge coins: established that looking at the treatment of coinage (cutting, bending, scratching) can provide just as much information about site function (particularly of votive sites) as Reece analysis.
Roman coin guides
Early Medieval rulersFind spots directly from database
Abstract & image from dbpedia (wikipedia)
Examples recorded by the Scheme’s staff
Linked drop downsDenomination
Issuer
Mint Reece periodReverse type Rep. moneyer
Category
Issuer
Denomination MintType Moneyer
Roman coins
All Medieval coin periods
Drop downs drive knowledge pages
These dropdown lists have been derived from various sources including EMC, CCI, RIC etc.
And search engine
Eliminate errors in search queries by only allowing the available options.
Ancient World linked data
• Data bank of ancient place names
• Link to these common identifiers
• All talking about the same place with an authoritative source
Nomisma linked data model
Disseminate via social media
Image resource
Facebook & Twitter
Wikipedia seeding
Enabled by releasing content and data under a Creative Commons licence
Low visibility
Search for either numismatics or coins produces poor visibility of links to museums. Perhaps this can be addressed by the Money & Museums network that C&M is working on.
High visibility
Guide position on Google1. Roman – 2nd out of 1.25million2. Early Medieval – 2nd out of 350K3. Medieval – 1st out of 340K4. Greek & Roman – 1st out of 62.5K5. Post Medieval – 1st out of 300K6. Byzantine – 1st out of 62.6K7. Iron Age – 1st out of 280K
Search optimised?
Analytical performance
Unusual length of visit Search term: iron age coins lincolnshire Pages viewed: 186.00 Time spent viewing: 2 hours 26 minutes
