distributing the wealth

Distributing the wealth

Knowledge transfer in numismaticsDaniel Pett

dpett@britishmuseum.org / @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

The end.Visit our website : www.finds.org.uk

Contact me: dpett@britishmuseum.orgTwitter: @portableant