OCRE (Online Coins ofthe Roman Empire) is an attempt to present, in an easily
searchable form, all the varieties of the coinage issued by the
emperors of ancient Rome. Phase 1, which is launched today, covers
the coinage of the first emperors, from Augustus to Hadrian (27 BC –
AD 138).
The site presents a basic
description of each published variety based on the ANS’ collection
catalogue (MANTIS).
Each of these type descriptions is linked to specimens present in the
ANS collection and, where available, to images. Searches are made
straightforward through a series of facets, presented in a way that
will already be familiar to users of other ANS search tools.
Traditional searches of
familiar numismatic categories such as obverse and reverse legends
and types are provided, in the hope that OCRE will provide an
identification tool useful to collectors, dealers, curators and field
archaeologists.
Subject searches have
also been provided to allow more general researchers to find
personifications, deities and portraits.
“OCRE is yet another
example of the way that the ANS is both presenting numismatic
material to those knowledgeable in the field, as well as expanding
the accessibility of numismatic material to broader audiences”,
notes ANS Director Ute Wartenberg Kagan. “Building on years of
curatorial work to catalogue our coins, we hope that our new
web-based tools will make that work available to as broad an audience
as possible, in as flexible a way as possible”.
ANS
database developer Ethan Gruber, who built OCRE, explains how it has
been designed from the beginning to use a Linked Data approach to
deliver added functionality: “OCRE is built on Numishare,
an open source suite of applications for managing and publishing
numismatic collections on the web. The underlying data model of
the collection is the Numismatic Description Standard (NUDS),
a linked data-influenced XML ontology for coins. NUDS enables
the linking of coin types in OCRE to numismatic concepts represented
on Nomisma.org
as well as linking to web resources that describe physical specimens,
such as those in the ANS' own collection. Data about these
specimens –images, weights, findspots–can be extracted for
statistical and geographic analyses in OCRE.”
A key element in the design has also been to link other stable
resources describing the ancient world, such as Pleiades
project for ancient geography.
OCRE project manager and
Roman specialist, Gilles Bransbourg describes the advance that is
heralded by OCRE: “OCRE is a leap forward for numismatists,
historians and archaeologists alike. Until now, any research into
Roman imperial coinage had to rely on paper-based catalogues, online
auctions or the very few collections available online. OCRE offers a
single, central online catalogue that allows users to view, download
and organize digitized information covering the entire history of the
Roman imperial coinage. The attraction of OCRE is that it is built as
an open system. Any significant public or private collection may now
link to OCRE and make its coins available to the wider public. Coin
types will be connected to a growing number of examples from an
ever-expanding number of sources. The digitized availability of
relevant information like weights, modules, materials, legends,
images, issuers, mints, location of find, and finally pictures, opens
vast fields of research in many different directions and will
hopefully inspire other areas in numismatics and beyond.”
ADDRESSES
Other ANS research tools:
MANTIS (the
collection database): http://numismatics.org/search
ARCHER (the
archives database): http://numismatics.org/archives/
DONUM (the
library catalogue): http://donum.numismatics.org/
