New Online Resource for Roman Coins: OCRE

On the 17th of July, the American Numismatic Society announced the launch of Online Coins of the Roman Empire (OCRE), a major new tool to aid in the identification, research and cataloging of the coins of the ancient world. Produced in collaboration with ISAW, OCRE presents, in an easily searchable form, all the varieties of the coinage issued by the emperors of ancient Rome. The initial phase covers the coinage of the first emperors, from Augustus to Hadrian (27 BC – AD 138).

ANS database developer Ethan Gruber, who built OCRE, explains how it has been designed from the beginning to use a Linked Data approach to deliver added functionality:

OCRE is built on Numishare, an open source suite of applications for managing and publishing numismatic collections on the web.  The underlying data model of the collection is the Numismatic Description Standard (NUDS), a linked data-influenced XML ontology for coins.  NUDS enables the linking of coin types in OCRE to numismatic concepts represented on Nomisma.org as well as linking to web resources that describe physical specimens, such as those in the ANS' own collection.  Data about these specimens­–images, weights, findspots–can be extracted for statistical and geographic analyses in OCRE.

OCRE linked data is published in a standard format specified by the Pelagios project, which means that other websites -- like ISAW's collaborative geographic database Pleiades -- can automatically link to all the coins found or minted at a particular location. See, for example, the Pleiades place resource for Emerita Augusta (modern Merida, Spain), where you will find a link to 15 coins minted at Emerita Augusta in the right-hand column, under the subheading "Pelagios Annotations from Online Coins of the Roman Empire."

OCRE project manager and Roman specialist Gilles Bransbourg, who is an ISAW Research Associate, describes the advance that is heralded by OCRE:

OCRE is a leap forward for the numismatists, historians and archaeologists alike. Until now, any research into Roman imperial coinage had to rely on paper-based catalogues, online auctions or the very few collections available online. OCRE offers a single central online catalogue that allows users to view download and organize digitized information that aims at covering the entire history of the Roman imperial coinage. The attraction of OCRE is that it is built as an open system. Any significant public or private collection may now link itself to OCRE and make its coins available to the wider public. Coin types will be connected to a growing number of examples from an ever-expanding number of sources. The digitized availability of relevant information like weights, modules, materials, legends, images, issuers, mints, location of find, and finally pictures, opens vast fields of research in many different directions and will hopefully inspire other areas in numismatics and beyond.

You can read the full ANS press release about OCRE online in PDF format. It includes more information about OCRE's creation and capabilities.