Greek types from IRIS integrated into Nomisma

Greek types from IRIS integrated into Nomisma

A few weeks ago during the Hackathon Athens at the French School, nearly 13,000 coin types from IRIS (IDs Recorded In Skeleton) were loaded into the Nomisma.org SPARQL endpoint. These types are now available alongside those published by the American Numismatic Society's Hellenistic Royal Coinages project, making it possible to query and visualize data across a broader spectrum of Greek royal and civic coinages. Although the IRIS types are not as completely detailed as those from other projects (containing obverse and reverse type descriptions and legends, material, authority, mint, region, and issue dates but notably not denominations or portraits/deities), it is still possible to list these civic coinages in the example types for authorities and mints within the Nomisma.org interface.

See for example, the URI for the Achaemenid Empire:

The Nomisma page for the Achaemenid Empire

This is an excellent illustration of a significant body of types enhancing the research context of a political entity. Previously, this map would have shown IGCH coin hoards that were linked to Achaemenid rulers, but the authorities, whether dynasts themselves or satraps issuing in the name of the dynasty are linked to both mints and the Achaemenid Empire Nomisma concept. The map now displays the geographic distribution of the production of Achaemenid coinage, centered primarily in Anatolia, but also extending into the Levant and a single issue in Babylon.

There is a list of nearly 300 total types related to this political entity, ordered chronologically and linked to IRIS. The types are downloadable as CSV directly from the Nomisma SPARQL endpoint.

Eventually, the coins from the Bibliothèque nationale de France that are linked to IRIS will be merged into the exports that have been linked into other Nomisma-affiliated projects, and examples from the BnF and other institutions that begin to catalog with IRIS URIs will begin to populate the tables on Nomisma pages to illustrate the types.

Posted by Ethan Gruber at 8:27 AM