Artifact Numbering
A modified Agora scheme that uses a (no more than) two letter type designation as follows:
AT Architectural Terracotta
AR Silver
AU Gold
BI Bone & Ivory
C Coin
CC Cocciopesto
CE Ceramic (where fired ceramic is reused)
CO Copper
FE Iron
GJ Gems & Jewelry
GL Glass
L Lamp
LW Loomweight
MISC Miscellaneous
I Inscription
P Pottery
PB Lead
PL Plaster
S Stone (different types are listed under Materials)
ST Stucco
SP Spindlewhorls (haven’t seen any yet)
TC Terracotta
TE Tesserae
WD Wood
This is followed by the trench number and then a dash and a sequence number. So the first coin inventoried from trench 25 would be C25-1. These numbers are issued by Bice and their creation is scripted in the database so that duplicate numbers are not issued.
This will allow us to a) store finds by material type for preservation and b) also store them by context, so they can better be examined contextually.
We also met our first finds expert this year. Cook came to study the lamps. This forced us to deal with the problem of multiple people (the experts) needing to create their own accession numbers for ceramics. The scheme needed to allow experts to assign numbers themselves (and off-season) but also allow items to change definitions (to move from one pottery class to another, for example). We devised a scheme that embeds a code for the expert assigning the number. Since Cook is the first expert, he gets 01. So he can assign numbers to lamps as Code-Trench-Expert-Serial Number. If he assigned a lamp number to the first lamp of trench 25, he doesn’t have to know that Bice already assigned one. Hers would be L25-1. His would be L25-01-1. Subtle, but if the Black Gloss person (number 05) comes up with a lamp in the BG bag for trench 25, they would assign it L25-05-1. No dups and the lamps still get filed in trench order.