April « 2007 « Central Unit blogs

Codex game show recruiting people

April 30th, 2007 by daniel pett

Hosted by Tony Robinson CODEX is back for a second series – but this time two teams will compete every week to win the history quiz series!

Are you interested in history? Are you brave enough to spend the night in a Museum? Can you make up a team?

We are looking for teams of 3 people, who need to know each other, work together or have shared knowledge to make up a team. Teams can be made up of colleagues, family members or friends all with a connection to history, through a shared profession or a hobby. Maybe you’re brewers or traders, artists or engineers, students or sailors, potters or politicians … we’re open to ideas!.

We will be auditioning round the country in the next couple of weeks so please get in touch as soon as possible for an application form. We will be filming with the chosen contestants before the recording so there will be advertising possibilities for teams taking part. We are filming the series at the British Museum in London in June, 2007.

Teams will compete in a series of quiz rounds, based around some of the most famous historical artefacts in the British Museum.

EMAIL: mailto:codex@diverse.tv or call 0207 855 7463

Tags: 0207 855 7463;, British Museum, London, Tony Robinson
Posted in Television | Comments (0)

Conference papers

April 17th, 2007 by daniel pett

I’ll be adding the conference papers as and when I get access to them.

To recap, here’s the first day’s speakers:

The Portable Antiquities Scheme’s Database: Its Development for Research Since 1998
Unedited proceedings write up
Dan Pett, British Museum

The Portable Antiquities Scheme: the Contribution of Lithics and Lithic Scatters
Clive Bond, University of Winchester

Bronze Age Hoards: Their Contribution to Landscape Archaeology
Richard Bradley, University of Reading

Searching for Context: Cauldrons, Feasting, Axes & Death in Later Prehistoric South Wales
Mark Lodwick, Museum of Wales

The Technology of Enchantment and the Enchantment of Technology? Iron Age Celtic Art, GIS analysis and the PAS
Duncan Garrow, University of Oxford

Across the Divide: Iron Age Styles in Roman Britain
Fraser Hunter, National Museum of Scotland

The Portable Antiquities Scheme and Roman Northamptonshire: Some Work in Progress Tom Brindle, King’s College London

Finds from the Roman Northern Frontier: Patterns from PAS
Data Rob Collins,University of Newcastle

Extending the frontiers: How the PAS Roman Coin Database Expands Our Knowledge of Roman Coin Use inEngland
Sam Moorhead, British Museum

Counting Roman Brooches
Jude Plouviez, Suffolk Archaeological Service

Tags: British Museum, Clive Bond, Dan Pett, Duncan Garrow, Jude Plouviez, King\'s College London, Mark Lodwick, Museum of Wales, National Museum of Scotland, Richard Bradley, Rob Collins, Roman Brooches, Roman Coin, Roman Northamptonshire, Sam Moorhead, Scotland, Suffolk Archaeological Service, technology of enchantment, University of Newcastle, University of Oxford, University of Reading, University of Winchester, Wales
Posted in archaeology, conference, Museums | Comments (0)

New A-level spec – archaeology

April 16th, 2007 by daniel pett

http://www.aqa.org.uk/qual/gce/archaeology.php
The new syllabi for AQA’s archaeology examination have been released this week. Sam Moorhead asked me nicely if I would add this to our website, so here we are. It has to keep being studied and in some ways, I think this is harder than my undergrad degree.

Tags: Sam Moorhead
Posted in archaeology | Comments (2)

Conference day tomorrow

April 16th, 2007 by daniel pett

The Scheme’s tenth anniversary conference is on at the British Museum tomorrow and Wednesday. This is a chance for the Scheme to demonstrate the impact that the Scheme and analysis of collected data, has made upon the archaeological world. There’s an extremely varied lineup, some great speakers and some really interesting research to be demonstrated. The two day conference covers all periods that the Scheme records and draws directly from the database that we have now been filling for over 5 years. I’ll be outlining how this has developed since I joined the Scheme and also speaking about some forthcoming developments that we’re rolling out. I’ll also discuss the forthcoming revamp of the Celtic Coin Index, a new and enhanced database with various web 2.0 methodologies encapsulated – tagging, ratings, downloads, KML, XML, REST. It’s a big job and probably the best thing I have programmed so far.

Tickets sold out for this nearly 3 weeks ago, and we’re inundated with requests from disappointed people. The proceedings will be published and if I get the chance, the powerpoints will be made available as PDF documents on this website. This may not happen until the start of May as I’m off to see the Cricket Semi-final in St Lucia (Australia vs someone)! However, I’ll add any photos that I get and if you attend and take any, please do share them. We’ll be glad to post them here.

If you’re coming, the day kicks off at 10am and there’s some added bonus things in the delegate pack – 10% off at the British Museum bookshop and buy one, get one free main meals at a local Wagamama’s restaurant.

Tags: Australia, British Museum, Museum bookshop, tomorrow The Scheme\'s tenth anniversary, Wagamama\'s restaurant
Posted in archaeology, conference | Comments (2)

New PhD announcement

April 9th, 2007 by daniel pett

UCL logo Collaborative PhD in Roman coin finds in Britain: The Institute of Archaeology, University College London and the Portable Antiquities Scheme, The British Museum

British Museum logo This AHRC funded PhD will support a student in researching the 45,000 or more Roman coins that have been recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme (www.finds.org.uk) since 1997. The Project will start at the end of September 2007 for three years. The successful candidate will develop and apply a range of research methods to the data and present a coherent analysis of the PAS finds against existing published material. The student will be based at the Institute of Archaeology and the British Museum where the Portable Antiquities Scheme is administered. Knowledge of and interest in Roman archaeology is important and candidates must be prepared to learn and apply statistical techniques. Applicants must be either UK residents (full studentship) or EU nationals (fees only).

They should normally have, or expect soon to be awarded, a Masters degree.

For further information, contact the project supervisors:

Kris Lockyear (k.lockyear@ucl.ac.uk) or Sam Moorhead (smoorhead@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk)

Information on Research Degrees at the Institute of Archaeology is available at: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/resstud/index.htm

Downloadable application forms are available from: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/graduate-study/application-admission

Applications are due by May 18th. Short-listed applicants will need to be available for interview on June 6th. Completed applications including proposed research design should be sent to:
Lisa Daniel,
Graduate Programme Administrator AHRC IOA/PAS PhD
Institute of Archaeology
University College London
31–34 Gordon Square
London WC1H 0PY
United Kingdom

Tags: AHRC IOA, Britain, British Museum, European Union, Institute of Archaeology, Institute of Archaeology University College London, Kris Lockyear, Lisa Daniel, London, Roman, Sam Moorhead, United Kingdom, University College London, www.finds.org.uk
Posted in archaeology, Database, Geospatial, News, research | Comments (0)

More database improvements

April 8th, 2007 by daniel pett

This is just an update on database improvements over the last week:

Coin forms have been introduced for each period (Iron Age, Roman, Early Medieval, Medieval, Post Medieval.) The choices that can be made on data entry are now tied to the correct choices. This should therefore limit the amount of errors that are made by accident due to clicking the wrong option in a long list of rulers/denominations/ etc
Reece periods have now been assigned to Roman coins, geographic areas will be added for Iron Age coins, categories and types for coins that fall under the EMC jurisdiction etc.

Once all database changes have settled down on the numismatic front, these tied dropdowns will be released and made available for others to use. These choices have been influenced by the revamp of the CCI, RPC and the EMC. There is also a new addition to the period list (just to accomodate these coins) with the appearance of Greek & Roman Provincial coins, which uses dropdown data generated from the SNG. There won’t be many of these…..

The tidying up of counties is now underway, therefore you can find artefacts from Worcestershire and not just from Hereford and Worcester. This will take time as we check validity of grid references to parish level, but will be finished soon (then you start all over again with the new data!)

To come over the next week or so – expansion of results to show thumbnails if present, better data editing fields, new search screens, RSS visibility enhanced, better metadata on image screens and a few more subtle changes. This should aid navigation of this site. We appreciate that this has been an issue, but we have been limited due to development funds being minimal. The site now has over 1/4 million objects recorded and 135,000 images. We have also added 11000 coin records from Norfolk in the last month from spreadsheets. Other improvements that we hope to roll out include enhanced map client and some more HER improvements. It is getting more usable slowly….

Tags: Hereford, Roman Provincial, search screens, Worcester
Posted in Database | Comments (0)

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