ANS Summer school: The Portable Antiquities Database Daniel Pett [email protected].

ANS Summer school:The Portable Antiquities Database

Daniel [email protected]

Portable Antiquities Scheme

• 19,100 contributors of data

• 712,000 objects recorded• 448,000 geo-referenced

find spots• All available under CC

NC-BY-SA• Driving archaeological

knowledge of rural areas• Funded by DCMS

• Employs 60 people• Deal with public

discovery of archaeology

• Started in 1997• Costs £1.4mill per

annum• IT budget c.£5000• Cut by 15% over 4 years

Recording: one chance

Our staff generally have one chance to record Dissemination online is swift, cheap, easy There is no other archaeological database of this size It is underused for research at present The data it contains can tell a thousand stories of our shared heritage

We have 60 non-specialised numismatists?

Do you? Why not? Is it a dying subject?

Objects by year

449,359 objects online @ 23:20 26/2/10 – 400K in 7 years!Prediction of 1 million by 2013

English & Welsh Treasure cases compared with Scottish Treasure Trove

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 20080

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

ScotlandEngland and Wales

finds.org.uk

• Re-launched March 2010• Then had 17,000 contributors• & 1,457 user accounts• & 554,000 objects recorded • Cost just £48 to build • Uses 3rd party data• Ordnance survey• Yahoo! • Social media• Theyworkforyou

• Fully open source software• The empowered public can record their own data

Prize winning

• Site won best of web – Research/ Online collection at Museums and the Web 2011 (Philadelphia)• Roger Bland won Prix Allier de Hauteroche for work on single gold coin finds• Sam Moorhead won archaeologist of the year in 2011• Project won best archaeological project at British Archaeological awards 2001• Staffordshire hoard won best discovery in 2010• Frome hoard won best rescue excavation 2011

The Portable Antiquities Scheme: an awesome example of crowdsourced heritage, open geodata, and savvy mashups - Tyler Bell (ex Yahoo!)

Another example of digital classics/antiquities getting it right – Sean Gillies NYU

There is nothing else like the PAS anywhere in the world. The scheme has produced some impressive and unexpected benefits...and created a massive and unprecedented community archaeology project. – Derek Fincham

I regard the Portable Antiquities Scheme as a flagship for archaeology. It's got enormous support from enthusiasts, it's very highly regarded. As far as I'm concerned, in the great scheme of things, it's chicken feed in terms of its financing, and in terms of bang for buck, it's immensely successful. – Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture

Period from Quantity

Iron Age 42,307

Roman 171,289

Early Medieval 2,410

Medieval 28,643

Post Medieval 20,971

Modern 206

Byzantine 97

Greek & Roman provincial 171

Total 226,094

Quantity?

Jigsaw of British numismatics

Early Medieval Coin Corpus – still independent

Portable Antiquities Scheme

Hoards from Treasure Act Celtic Coin Index

Iron Age and Roman Coins of Wales project

Since 15th June

Period from Quantity

Byzantine 2

Early Medieval 4

Iron Age 5

Medieval 108

Modern 2

Roman 346

Total 467

Achieving excellence?

Holistic vs. insular?

Archaeological vs. traditional numismatics?

Hadrian’s Wall

Prolific recording in Kent

ACADEMIC USE

PAS Iron Age data over CCI data

Frome (Somerset) Hoard

Finder compensation £1/2 million!

Is the resource finite?

Can we support the Treasure payouts?

Is the Scheme loved by all?

Ask Rick

American coins in the UK

Frustrating case of the Crosby Garrett Helmet

Typical discoveries

Unusual Serb dinars!

Gold Angel of Henry VII

Visigothic tremissis

Rare sestertius of Julia Domna

&tc…..

Typical numismatic record

High resolution zoom

Multi-period coin guides

Objects referencing place:The Staffordshire Moorlands trulla

This is a list of four forts located at the western end of Hadrian's Wall; Bowness (MAIS), Drumburgh (COGGABATA), Stanwix (UXELODUNUM) and Castlesteads (CAMMOGLANNA). it incorporates the name of an individual, AELIUS DRACO and a further place-name, RIGOREVALI.

http://www.finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/49791

Applied numismatics

Bland & Loriot – single gold Roman coins

Data collection bias?

Off Limit areas

and

PAS finds

Sources: MAGIC, English Heritage, National Trust, Forestry Commission,

PAS website (11th November 2009)

SSSI (Purple)SAMs (Blue)

National Trust (Pink)Forestry Commission (Orange)

Staff based here

Here be mountains

Integration of old OS Maps

Layer provided by National Library of Scotland

Water Newton (Cambs) rally

Roman town of Durobrivae

Precise find spots from one event

Re-use of OS and EH point data

Both of these datasets came as CSV, now converted from grid refs to Lat/Lng and WOEID (and also elevation for centre point) if anyone wants them.

Daily Telegraph: 25th September 2009

Wikipedia feeding

Analysis of impact

Search phrase Pages viewed Length of visit

Enthroned Durham coin spia 519 3 hours 26 mins

Types of Roman denarii coins 350 53 mins 49 seconds

All bronze Roman coins 342 31 mins 37 seconds

Multiple formats<objects xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.heritage-standards.org/midas/schema/1.0 http://www.heritage-standards.org/midas/schema/1.0/midas_object.xsd"><object><recordmetadata><created><createdon>2011-01-21 15:11:18</createdon><createdby><appellation><name>Frank Basford</name><identifier namespace="PAS">fbasford</identifier></appellation></createdby></created><lastupdated><lastupdatedon>2011-01-21 17:44:00</lastupdatedon><lastupdatedby><appellation><name>Frank Basford</name><identifier namespace="PAS">fbasford</identifier></appellation></lastupdatedby></lastupdated></recordmetadata>

{"recordID":"425728","finds":[{"created2":"2011 01 21","description":"<p>A fragment of a post-Medieval cast copper-alloy 'crotal bell' (c. 1500-c. 1650). The fragment is part of the lower hemisphere and the straight edge is one side of the sound slit. The outer face has a 'fish scale' design that encloses a maker's mark: S G. It has a shiny mid-green patina on the outer face and a dull matt green patina on the inner face. The breaks are crisp. 54.9 x 37.7 x 2.1mm. Weight: 29.03g.<\/p>", ……..

Reuse licensed!

Social Media – pass on numismatics to non specialist audience

Engagement & dialogue

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

Contact me: [email protected]

Twitter: @portableant