CIfA Finds Group
The Finds Group is the special interest group within CIfA providing advice on the collection, documentation, conservation and research of archaeological materials. The Finds Group initiated the development of Toolkits.
Website: https://www.archaeologists.net/groups/finds
Contact: groups@archaeologists.net
Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS)
National scheme to encourage the recording of finds found by members of the public in England and Wales. Website hosts the PAS database as well as numerous recording guides and contact details for regional PAS Finds Liaison Officers. Archaeologists have a duty to report any items recovered that fall under the Treasure Act to the relevant PAS officer.
Website: https://finds.org.uk
Treasure Trove Scotland
The Treasure Trove Unit (TTU) is responsible for the daily running of the Treasure Trove system in Scotland, and is the first port of call for new discoveries and finders. It carries out investigations and object assessments, and, where appropriate, investigates findspots.
Website: https://treasuretrovescotland.co.uk
Roman Finds Group
The Roman Finds Group (RFG) provides a forum for all those with an interest in Roman artefacts.
Website: https://www.romanfindsgroup.org.uk
Money & Medals Network
The Money & Medals Network (MMN) acts as an information exchange for museum curators within the UK whose collections include coins, medals and other objects relating to monetary and economic history and numismatics. Also provides information on best practice, new research and news items relating to the understanding, care and public access of those collections.
Website: https://www.moneyandmedals.org.uk
Online Coins of the Roman Empire
Online Coins of the Roman Empire (OCRE) is designed to help in the identification, cataloguing and research of the rich and varied coinage of the Roman Empire. The project records every published type of Roman imperial coinage from Augustus in 31 BC until the death of Zeno in AD 491. Contains a digital corpus, with downloadable catalogue entries, incorporating over 43,000 types of coins.
Website: https://numismatics.org/ocre
OASIS
OASIS V is an online reporting form enabling archaeological and heritage practitioners in the UK to provide information about their investigations to regional Historic Environment Records (HERs) and respective national heritage organisations. As well as being an information-gathering tool, researchers may share reports with HERs for public release in the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) Library. The ADS, in addition to making the reports available online for access to the wider public, undertakes the curation and archiving of the digital files, ensuring long-term preservation.
Website: https://oasis.ac.uk
FAIR Principles
In 2016, the ‘FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship’ were published in Scientific Data. The authors intended to provide guidelines to improve the Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse of digital assets. The principles emphasise machine-actionability (i.e., the capacity of computational systems to find, access, interoperate, and reuse data with none or minimal human intervention) because humans increasingly rely on computational support to deal with data as a result of the increase in volume, complexity, and creation speed of data.
Website: https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles
Online resources
- Iron Age & Roman Coins from Wales: one of the few easily accessible, publicly available online databases of Romano-British site finds (containing coin lists from almost 200 excavations in Wales)
- Portable Antiquities Scheme Finds Recording Guides: How to Record a Coin
- The Rural Settlement of Roman Britain: online resource that includes records of almost 90,000 coins from excavated rural settlements (published and unpublished). Individual coins are not recorded and instead coin assemblages are summarised by Issue Periods.
- Forvm Ancient Coins: Numiswiki
- Nomisma: collaborative project to provide stable digital representations of numismatic concepts according to the principles of Linked Open Data.
