Collection Highlights
Here colleagues and collaborators present their personal views on some favourite ADS resources. Tim Evans illustrates the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund's resource and Stewart Waller discusses the Oxford Expedition to Egypt: Scene-details Database
Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund:
Data Archive and Dissemination
Tim Evans
ADS Curatorial Officer
The ALSF was introduced in 2002 to tackle a wide range of problems in areas affected by the impact of aggregate extraction and has subsequently provided the backing for more than 200 archaeological projects based in England. In August 2006, the Archaeology Data Service, under the auspices of English Heritage, began a project to disseminate and secure for the long term the array of research and management documents produced by these projects in order to "deliver to public and professional audiences the full benefits of knowledge gained through past work in advance of aggregates extraction". In the year since the project started, the ADS have archived and disseminated the literature produced by just over 50 of these projects.
The large-scale and often interdisciplinary nature, of these projects means that the final output can consist of a small library of documents, specialist reports and illustrations which would not otherwise be available to the archaeological community. Therefore, web-pages for each individual project can be accessed via a specially designed ALSF interface (http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/project/alsf/) which allows users to search by geographical region, archaeological period and research aim. In addition, the projects can also be found within our ArchSearch catalogue and -where applicable- grey literature is added to the ADS Grey Literature Library.
Finds from Cleveland Farm, Ashton Keynes, Wiltshire. ALSF Project Number 3355 (Wessex Archaeology)
The ALSF is arguably unique among funding bodies, with the projects beneath its banner representing a microcosm of the work undertaken by both academic departments and archaeological contractors in the UK today. Research-driven projects focussing on methodological issues stand side by side with development-led projects undertaken in the shadow of imminent, or in some cases, present aggregate extraction. The literature within the archive therefore reflects this and provides a fascinating insight into the scope of the ALSF. For example, a quick browse through the list of archives allows the user to view the reports from recent innovative approaches to landscape analysis and geoarchaeological predictive modelling such as the Archaeological Potential of Secondary Contexts project (http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/resources.html?apscontexts_eh_2007), or results from recent fieldwork such as that undertaken at Coln Gravel in Gloucestershire (http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/resources.html?colngravel_eh_2007). Attention should also be drawn to the projects that focus on 'rescue' sites excavated prior to PPG16 and subsequently without the developer funding to allow detailed post-excavation analysis. In these cases the ALSF has provided the resources to pull together and present material that would otherwise not reach the light of day. Highlights of such projects include regionally and nationally important excavations in the area of West Stow, Suffolk (http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/resources.html?weststow_eh_2007) and Cleveland Farm, Wiltshire (http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/resources.html?cleveland_eh_2007).
On a larger scale, the ALSF archive also contains numerous assessments of the aggregates based archaeological resource for specific geographical areas, a good example being the Aggregate Landscape of Somerset project (http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/resources.html?somersetaggs_eh_2007). These types of projects normally comprise a substantial desk-based analysis incorporating the results of AP mapping, geological surveys and HER records with the subsequent results providing an unparalleled resource for researchers interested in a particular region.
This is, however, only the start for the ADS and the ALSF partnership. The projects already covered have produced an enormous amount of data on which these archived reports have been based, the vast majority of this has been 'born-digital'. The next stage of this undertaking is to begin archiving this data to accompany the reports. It is anticipated that in time the ADS will hold the definitive resource for ALSF projects and highlight the importance of sustainability (in a digital archive sense at least) for the ALSF.
Oxford Expedition to Egypt:
Scene-details Database
Stewart Waller, ADS Curatorial Officer
Yvonne Harpur, Linacre College, Oxford
The Archaeology Data Service has recently released a major new resource for the study of Egyptology. Funded by the AHRC and created by Dr Yvonne Harpur, Adjunct Research Fellow of Linacre College, Oxford with Paolo Scremin, Khaled Abdallah Daoud and Andrew Leighton-Sims. The Oxford Expedition to Egypt (OEE) Scene-details Database provides users with a simple and intuitive means of examining information about scenes and scene details preserved on the walls of tombs dating to the 'Old Kingdom' or 'Pyramid Age' of Ancient Egypt (c. 2650 - 2150 BC). These tombs lie in cemeteries dotted along the 600-mile length of the River Nile in Egypt, and an untold number of similar tombs are still buried beneath the sand, awaiting discovery and eventual recording in the database. Each of the known tombs is identified by the name of its owner, which is usually inscribed in hieroglyphs at the entrance to the tomb's decorated chapel, or on the chapel's walls. Certain other details help to distinguish each tomb, such as the tomb's number, date, general and specific location, geographical position, and the type and orientation of the individual scenes and scene details painted or carved on the chapel's walls.
This new resource represents the latest manifestation of a long process of recording in Egypt starting in the first half of the Twentieth Century when two learned women, Bertha Porter and Rosalind Moss, based at the Griffith Institute in Oxford, devised an economical yet effective filing system, so that information concerning antiquities from Ancient Egypt could be recorded on cards and categorized systematically. This became a series of comprehensive reference books, the Topographical Bibliography of Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Texts, Reliefs and Paintings, often shortened by Egyptologists to Porter and Moss or simply PM, in recognition of its co-founders. The production of PM volumes was continued since this time and management of the project was assumed by Dr Jaromir Malek in the 1970s, when it was enhanced by the addition of wide-ranging appendices. Since the 1980s there has been a noticeable increase in the workload of the current PM staff and in the volume of data required for future PM volumes.
Each region must await its turn for publication or re-publication in the series, therefore it is inevitable that years pass by before a particular necropolis can possibly become the primary focus of the PM team. For example, 70 years have passed since the publication of Volume V. Such time-spans explain why the preparation of a bibliographical database was an attractive project for the Oxford Expedition to Egypt. Although PM is the 'parent' reference for the OEE Database, the organization of data in PM is very different, particularly in terms of regional scope and primary focus. The OEE Database covers all of the known Old Kingdom cemeteries simultaneously, and its narrower primary focus is the occurrence of scene types and their relevant scene details in tombs (scene details being mentioned only incidentally in PM). Scene types and their scene details were selected as the primary subject matter of Phase One of the OEE Database because they are easily identified, and they constitute the most varied source of information for academic and non-academic research. Furthermore, the scene types, their scene details, and even the smaller details within their scene details, transfer perfectly to a relational database - similar to a 'family tree' branching from a grandparent, to a parent, then to children and grand-children.
In reality the OEE Database has the potential to develop far beyond its 3-year limit, for, in addition to scene types and scene details, there are numerous other reliefs and paintings not included in the current database: processions of bearers carrying offerings; lines of estate personifications with gifts from productive lands; individual priests and scribes performing their duties; representations of the tomb owner and family member, and hieroglyphic inscriptions too numerous to be counted. The Phase 1 of this resource already contains hundreds of detailed images in a fully searchable database. These images in combination with extensive supporting information, cross references to scene types and cemetery locations and a comprehensive bibliography makes exploring these rich and complex scenes both straightforward and accessible.
Already well received by the Egyptological community, this resource is likely to become a key tool in the analysis and interpretation of Egyptian scene details and will undoubtedly be of interest, not only to scholars of Egypt in antiquity, but to a whole range of students and researchers across numerous disciplines.
OEE Scene Details Database http://ads.ahds.ac.uk/catalogue/resources.html?oee_ahrc_2006
