4th Joan Pye lecture

April 28th, 2008 by daniel pett

This came via our National Finds Adviser for Prehistoric and Roman objects, Sally Worrell. Some of you may be interested in the below:

The 4th Joan Pye lecture, ‘Understanding Britain as a Roman Imperial Possession’, will be given by Professor David Mattingly (University of Leicester) on Tuesday 24th June 2008 at 6.00 in the House of Lords.

The lecture is sponsored by the Roman Research Trust (http://rrt.classics.ox.ac.uk/). Admission is free but by ticket only as numbers are limited. For tickets please apply giving your name and contact details (preferably email) to Dr John Pearce, Department of Classics, King’s College London, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS, john.pearce@kcl.ac.uk. Tickets will be dispatched in late May with information on the venue and entry procedure for the House of Lords.

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CCI cleanup complete

April 23rd, 2008 by daniel pett

Some of our website users make use of the and might have noticed that a proportion of the findspots were inaccurate. We had coins in the sea and outside their specified county. These have now been cleaned up and relocated where needed; therefore making the resource more valid for researchers. I have also added the geographical district when a parish has been given. In due course, we will be uploading the East Leicestershire coin hoard and a couple of others.

To finish this task, you could say wasn’t exactly simple. We had grid references that were given the wrong grid square, reversed easting and northings and also a bug in the lat/long conversion script that I had been running. Using a variety of web mapping tools and the Ordnance Survey’s dataset of parish/district/county the CCI was realigned to what we have shown below in a Google Earth plot. If you have higher level access rights, you can produce these maps direct from any query. If you want to get access, contact me…

Celtic Coin Index in Google Earth

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Server issues

April 18th, 2008 by daniel pett

If you use our site frequently, you might have noticed that the servers have been less than reliable lately. I’ve been monitoring the logs (httpd, mysqld etc) to try and track the source of the server crashes down; it has been a hard slog as I’ve never done server maintenance regularly before. Several issues have come to light, and I’m not totally sure if the problems have been resolved. I therefore apologise for any further outages we suffer (always seems to be when I am away!) We have the servers monitored via pingdom (thanks to Andrew Larcombe).

Things that came out of the investigation were:

  1. Yahoo’s search spider was hammering our server constantly with a huge amount of activity which seemed to generate a slow query, send mysqld or httpd mad and then crash the server. This has infuriated our staff no end as the site is a live working tool via which they input their data about archaeological objects. I’ve blocked a couple of their spiders (via iptables) which seemed to do the most damage and then added User-agent: slurp Crawl-delay: 120 to the robots file on our server. It only seemed to have this issue with the findsdatabase URL. This month alone, their spider has taken 2.5GB of bandwidth for that site, and generated over 300,000 page requests for just finds.org.uk Is that wrong? I dunno….. 5% of your overall bandwidth in spider traffic?
    Although I did find that someone from the Pentagon seems to frequent our findsdatabase rather a lot.
  2. We’re getting probed for XSS vulnerabilities constantly by domains from Latvia and Russia, but their IP addresses seem to be hosted out of Marina del Rey, CA, America! (For example: 2.36.100.101 or 2.45.88.8)They try and see if they can redirect variables on your site by adding their URL to a query string. For example: http://www.iamamoron.com/?ID=http://holegirl.eclub.lv/.images/pictureofme?
    Now I’m not really interested in looking at the picture of someone from Latvia, with the domain name of holegirl. Haven’t you got better things to do?
    If you look around the web, there’s not much information about the eclub.lv domain hacking attempts; or at least not that I could find that was worthwhile reading.
    Their URL just goes to a 404 page with Cyrillic script which contains no malicious scripting that I can determine. However, I think I have sanitised all areas where there might be XSS vulnerabilities. I of course might well be wrong about the above. I guess you can use your .htaccess file to prevent http:// query strings, but I haven’t had time yet to figure this out. If anyone can give me a pointer, would be most grateful!
  3. We’ve also got a problem with a couple of SQL queries that were written by our former suppliers OAD, that constantly run slow. I’ve removed the functions that generate these on the website where ever I can. Hopefully that fixes it.
  4. There’s also been a couple of instances where we had intrusions via the old wordpress systems. These holes were well documented and have been cleared up. If you run wordpress and haven’t updated yet, more fool you. Their founder Matt, writes a good piece about why you need to upgrade over at his blog.

I’m not a server guru, so no doubt I’ve done it wrong.

Update to this: I’m also seeing the following IP address 1.29.72.70, which guess what is from the same USA address, checking the wp-cron.php file anyone know what they’re up to?

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What's going on in the Museum now?

April 18th, 2008 by daniel pett

The Hadrian barriers around the East Wing

The British Museum has got some interesting things occurring within its environs right now. Following on from the blockbusting “First Emperor” Exhibition, is the Hadrian exhibition (more relevant for the Scheme!) and the build up is evident around the Museum as the photos below demonstrate. Tickets are on sale now and there’s hoardings, posters and leaflets everywhere. However, China is not over yet in the Museum! There’s a Chinese garden being built in conjunction with a team from Kew Gardens.

Hadrian ticket post There’s more about this partnership project on the Museum’s website and it makes interesting reading and it will be fantastic to see it develop as the weather changes for the better.

This weekend also sees the Magic of Persia sponsored, Persian family events. This has been organised by my wife, and the preceding days have had family workshops, with todays ones being facilitated by my Treasure colleagues. They have been helping children to create a virtual Persian city made from original drawing from the wonderful David Allsop, inspired by Persepolis and then arranged to create a cityscape. It is much like the Chinese city seen earlier this year, but represents another powerful civilisation. If you’re free this weekend, based in London and fancy checking out a really varied programme of events, I would recommend it to you!

Here’s the programme of events for the weekend. Something for everyone, but remember, children have to be accompanied at all times.

The Persian city

Persia Family Weekend

Saturday 19 & Sunday 20 April 2008
11.00–16.30

Jewellery workshop hosted by Parima Moghaddam
Sessions start at 11.30, 12.30, 13.30, 14.30 and 15.30
Great Court (south-east side)

Ages 7+
Free ticketed sessions
Tickets available from the Paul Hamlyn Library

Build a Persian city
11.00–16.00

A free drop in art session with David Allsop
Great Court (south-west side)
Free drop-in art session

Mythical creatures workshop
11.00–16.00
With Sue Pritchard
Ford Centre for Young Visitors (Orange Section)

Free, but places limited

Storytelling
Sessions start at 12.00, 13.00 and 15.00 (approximately 35 to 45 minutes)
Xanthe Gresham tells tales of mythical creatures and legends
Room 34 (The Islamic World)
Recommended for 7+

Free

Persia family trail
Discover the world of ancient Persia with our special family trail and Persian prize.
Available from the Paul Hamlyn Library
Recommended for 7+

Free

Meet a Persian king
King Darius will be holding court in Room 52 and visiting the various family activities throughout the day.

Face painting
11.00–16.00
Great Court (south-east side)
Be transformed into an ancient Persian mythical creature in a matter of minutes.

Free but places limited

Sponsored by www.magicofpersia.com
Performances, films and documentaries

Performances on the main stage
Great Court (south side)

11.00 Ballet Afsaneh

11.30 Sabah Ensemble
12.00 Ballet Afsaneh
12.30 Rustam School
13.00 Enchanting Drums Ensemble
14.00 Ballet Afsaneh
14.30 Rustam School
15.00 Sabah Ensemble

15.30 Enchanting Drums Ensemble
16.00 Ballet Afsaneh
(All information correct at time of print)

Films and documentaries
All films are free, limited places

BP Lecture Theatre (running times include introduction and Q&A opportunity)
11.30 Mixed Nutz: ‘A Persian Adventure’ (45 minutes) Certificate: PG
13.30 The Rebirth of Rustam (75 minutes) Certificate: 12

15.00 Mixed Nutz :‘A Persian Adventure’ (45 minutes) Certificate: PG

Stevenson Lecture Theatre
Please be aware that the films shown in the Stevenson Lecture Theatre contain scenes that may not be suitable for younger audiences. Additional information concerning content is available from the Magic of Persia desk in the Great Court.David Allsop

Saturday 19 April
11.30 Shahrbanoo (58 minutes)
12.30 Red Card (74 minutes)
14.00 Horn, ‘Boogh’ (10 minutes)

14.15 Nose, Iranian Style (52 minutes)
15.15 President Mirghambar (65 minutes)

Sunday 20 April
11.30 Our Times (75 minutes)
12.45 Sir Alfred of Charles de Gaulle Airport (29 minutes)

13.30 Tehran has no Pomegranates (68 minutes)
14.45 Rough Cut (22 minutes)
15.15 Haydar, an Afghan in Tehran (20 minutes)
15.45 Shirvani film shorts – Circle, Candidate, Consent (45 minutes)

All images above, taken by Katharine Kelland and available with a Creative Commons licence on our flickr pages.

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Expert adviser to Government on International loans to Museums in the UK

April 17th, 2008 by daniel pett

I’ve been asked to circulate this by the DCMS; if you feel you could do this, then please do apply:

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport would like to invite applications for persons to provide expert advice to the Secretary of State, on applications for approval in respect of immunity from seizure for cultural objects on loan from abroad to temporary exhibitions in museums in the UK, under the terms of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007.

Time Commitment
We expect to receive between 30 and 40 applications for approval and these will need to be considered during May and June 2008. Therefore, applicants will be required to manage a large initial workload and, thereafter, may be called upon less frequently. The work will involve attending at least one meeting with DCMS officials but will mostly be carried out by correspondence.

Remuneration
Expert Advisers will be contracted for the provision of advisory services on a call off basis at the rate of £209 per day plus any travel expenses.

Duration of Engagement
Initially, the engagement will be for one year but may be renewed.

Background
Part 6 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 introduced immunity from seizure for cultural objects on loan from abroad to temporary exhibitions in museums in the UK that are approved in accordance with section 136 of the Act. For institutions located in England the authority responsible for granting approval is the Secretary of State. Museums wishing to benefit from the immunity need to be approved by the Secretary of State. To obtain the approval museums must demonstrate that their due diligence procedures are of the very highest level.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is looking for individuals to provide expert advice to the Secretary of State on applications for approval under Section 136. Museums will be invited to complete a questionnaire designed to illustrate the effectiveness of their due diligence procedures and the questionnaire will form the basis of the application process.

Person specification
You should have a good understanding of the work and structure of museums and a detailed understanding of loans procedures and the application of due diligence. This should include knowledge and/or experience of due diligence training, record keeping, loan agreements and other loans documentation.

Familiarity with Combating Illicit Trade: Due diligence guidelines for museums, libraries and archives on collecting and borrowing cultural material, issued by DCMS in 2005 and national and international standards which relate to the borrowing of works would also be helpful.
It is important that the advice provided to the Secretary of State on applications for approval is fully impartial. Applicants must be able to satisfy DCMS that they have no conflicts of interest in this respect.

How to apply
If you are interested in applying for one of these positions, please send us a detailed CV and a note on your suitability and experience against the above person specification. This should demonstrate your understanding of the various methods of investigating the provenance of objects, particularly where the full history is uncertain. It would be helpful if you could give some examples of work you have undertaken which demonstrate your ability in this area including technical expertise and the ability to investigate and analyse material.

Applications should be sent in writing or via email, to:

Mark Caldon
Cultural Property Unit
Department for Culture, Media and Sport
2-4 Cockspur Street
London SW1Y 5DH

Tel: 0207 211 6158
Email: mark.caldon@culture.gov.uk

Please also include the details of 2 referees who can vouch for your experience and suitability for the role.

Closing date

Completed applications should be received by Thursday 1 May 2008

Interviews

We will not be holding interviews for these positions. Selection will be made on the basis of the written applications. However, we will be taking up references.

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South East Research Framework Research Agenda Conference (26/04/08)

April 15th, 2008 by daniel pett

The below comes from Jake Weekes at Kent County Council. It is imperative that you email and book a place in advance!

Dear all,

Please find attached further details of the SERF Research Agenda conference on the 26th of April, kindly hosted by the University of Kent at their Medway Campus at Chatham Maritime (Pilkington Suite). I attach the prospective programme for the day and directions to the venue.

If you have not already booked your free place at the conference, please do so at serf@kent.gov.uk as soon as possible, as places are limited.

South East Research Framework Agenda and directions

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British Archaeology issue 100.

April 14th, 2008 by daniel pett

British Archaeology Issue 100Via Twitter, I found out that Tom Goskar over at Wessex Archaeology had an article published with Leif Isaksen (Uni of Southamptan) and Paul Cripps in the latest British Archaeology (May – June 2008 £4.25 a copy or join the CBA and get it gratis.) The Scheme’s website gets a nice plug with a half page box and screen grab of the Tiberius coin page from our coin guide which draws in data from the Scheme’s database and compiles it into a useful guide.

Their article gives a run through of the various computing issues that British archaeology is currently dealing with (the Museum sector could learn a lot and needs to catch up; but that is just my opinion.) There is a particularly impressive LIDAR image of Stonehenge (which is currently hosting a small excavation) and some information on the ARK recording system (is that LP Archaeology’s) and also that most excellent project Pleiades. Though there doesn’t seem to be anything about their fantastic work with their own stuff over at Wessex Archaeology! Tom and the rest of the Wessex team do some interesting stuff on their site, which is also worth checking regularly. Or if you’ve woken up to the awesome power of RSS, subscribe and stop wasting time visiting sites when nothing has changed.

Sorry for the apparent silence recently, I’ve been battling with various server issues and in house data cleaning problems; more to follow in the next few days or even hours.

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The wonderful world of radiates

April 7th, 2008 by sam moorhead

The powerpoint presentation embedded below, is some of the training material that I present to our finds liaison officers. Some of our readers might find this useful, so I’m sharing it with you.

Enjoy

View

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Roman coins declared Treasure – 2007 T198

April 2nd, 2008 by daniel pett

The Northern Echo ran a story yesterday regarding 11 silver coins (a small hoard by definition) that was declared Treasure at inquest. This hoard contained a rare example of a coin issued by Hadrian (a British Museum exhibition starts shortly on his life and exploits) and a possible plated copy of a coin of his wife Sabina. They asked for images yesterday, but I couldn’t supply these in time as they weren’t available.

The records for these finds will be available in due course on our database.Coin of Sabina

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