The Portable Antiquities Scheme records archaeological objects found by the public in England and Wales. It has created the largest archaeological database online with over 338,000 records and images. The Scheme works with metal detectorists and the public to record finds that would otherwise be lost. It provides valuable data for research and heritage protection.

1. Recording a fragile past The Portable Antiquities Scheme Daniel Pett

5. Is it any good?

7. What people say! David Lammy MP, Former Minister for Culture, said ‘ Metal detectorists […] Thanks to the responsible approach they display in reporting finds and the systems we have set up to record them, more archaeological material is available for all to seeat museums or to study online.’ Neil MacGregor Director, the British Museum said ‘ This huge increase in finds is testimony to the success of the Treasure Act and the Portable Antiquities Scheme and makes a crucial contribution to our understanding of our past. Mark Fisher, MP (Lab.) ‘ Over the past 10 years, the field of antiquities in England and Wales has been transformed-there is no other word for it- by the Treasure Act 1996 and by the portable antiquities scheme. Mike Heyworth, MBE, Director of the CBA ‘ Too good to become history…’ British Archaeology 100

9. Objects by period

10. Objects by year Note 2007 - After 3 months, nearly 30K objects - extrapolated that makes 120K for this year (very unlikely!)

11. Treasure cases by year Foot & Mouth outbreak

12. What do we record?

16. A typical record High quality description Multiple images Reference material Spatial data if you have the correct acess rights Metrics and discovery

17. Mapping public discovery

19. The Scheme as a content provider

20. Reuse of our data

22. Licenced data: Content provided under

23. Where else is our content used? Online: BRICKS - finds identifier People’s Network Discovery Service Offline: Academic journals, papers, original research, desk based assessments, etc Where else could our content be used? The new British Museum website - for example, departmental pages could have recent finds that relate to their period (RSS or OAI-PMH to search our dbase) The 24 Hour Museum - for example local museum pages could have feeds of local finds (RSS) Local society websites Historic Environment Record - XML or OAI-PMH Web mashups - plot PAS finds, against Oxford Archaeology WMS, vs Megalithic Portal vs Museum locations (not done yet before you ask!)

24. http://twitter.com/bm_pants Latest Scheme updates sent to Twitter; e.g. Finds of note Latest blog posts ( www.finds.org.uk/wordpress ) Updates from theyworkforyou.com relating to us

25. The Scheme has a group and a page. It accounts for >2% of our incoming referrers. When our funding troubles began, the public created a “ Save the Portable Antiquity Scheme ” group (700+ members) and 2 petitions on the Parliamentary site (>2000 signatures)

27. Example usage of flickr feed

29. Roman coin guide High res image Reece period of coin Number of coins of this issuer (dynamic update)

30. Coin knowledge Database tells us what denoms possible Active mints under this issuer Last 1o examples of their coins recorded

31. Zoom & pan

32. Mapping our data on the web

33. Google mapping

34. Same data – google maps

35. Data viewed in Google Earth

36. External archaeological use This is where it gets interesting…..

37. The end. Visit our website @ www.finds.org.uk Contact me: [email_address]