The Website (https://www.rgzm.de/samian) comprises a suite of databases concerned with samian ware. Their aim is to standardize the recording and publishing of samian ware in such a way that the data is available both for comaparative identification, and more significantly for scientific analysis using statistical and mapping tools. All have their individual search masks appropriate to the questions likely to require resolution. The databases comprise the following:
- Names on Terra Sigillata / Corpus Vasorum Arretinorum (merged into one database)
- Name marked decorated vessels
- Ovolo Vessels
The advantages of enhancing access to the dataset via the internet are clear. A major problem with paper publication of corpora is that once published, such works are rarely revised and quickly become outdated. With internet access it is possible to design data-entry forms for specialists to make new entries, and for both specialists and general users to interrogate the data from remote locations.Apart from the classical search routines on potter stamps and forms, there are also sophisticated explorative research tools available, which are deepening the understanding of the underlying structures of marketing and consumption patterns in the Roman period.
Besides distribution maps allowing for in-depth analysis of weighted distributions), time charts can be generated for a whole range of sites to analyze the start- and end-dates of sites, e.g. the intensity of samian consumption on a particular site or in a region. The internal organisational structures of the production sites is another area of research, where additional explorative tools, such as correspondence analysis of potter workshops, offer greater opportunities hitherto unavailable. A pilot GIS-project on least-cost routing has been implemented on the project website as well, enabling the study of the lowest theoretical transport costs from e.g. Baetica to England or South Gaul to the Danube area and this project will be continued on an interactive platform
The Grande Stratégie behind this collaborative research project is that progress is dependent on a win-win situation: if archaeologists are interested in evaluating the Terra Sigillata from a specific site they are working on, in a supra-regional context, they are forced to enter their data into the system. Only in that way, will they be able to study their site(s) in the context of the Roman Empire (the context in which the export of Terra Sigillata in Roman time was happening anyway), e.g. by comparing their site dating curves with other sites. For this purpose, a full set of editing masks has been made available for researchers, with the end effect, that their material will become available for the research community as well.
The only requirement is, that for researchers who are willing to do editing work on their Sigillata material, a 1 day introduction course on how to add or edit records is compulsary. The workshop attract attendance by a large number of researchers and academics from all over Europe with an interest in Gaulish and Arretine sigillata found in the area. Since 2016, also the complete corpus of stamps on Arretine sigillata stamps published by Oxé, Comport and Kenrick (OCK 2000) has been fully integrated into the system and is now searchable and editable. This also laid the foundations for integrating Spanish sigillata in the near future into the database, which will offer a much more comprehensive overview of that production and its exportation.
In agreement with the book publishers, the main search facilities have been on Open Access since mid 2016. The staff at Mainz are responsible for supervising technical support and further development of this international digital research infrastructure. It is hoped that as some researchers become more experienced they can take on the responsibility of action as Regional "Centurions" as the responsible reference persons for keeping an eye on the data integrity for their region.
The current number of participants in this research infrastructure is encouraging
enough to continue work on this unique European cooperation.
As a result of a co-operation agreement between the Universities of Reading and Leeds together with the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz, the life-long study made by Brian Hartley and Brenda Dickinson of the stamps and signatures on samian ware has also become available on the database. They were originally published as a series of books (Institute of Classical Sudies, London, from 2008 onwards) which replaced at that time the Index of Potters' Stamps (Oswald, 1931).
Since 2016, also the complete corpus of stamps on Arretine sigillata stamps published by Oxé, Comport and Kenrick (OCK 2000) has been fully integrated into the system and is now searchable and editable. This also laid the foundations for integrating Spanish sigillata into the database, which will offer a much more comprehensive overview of that production and its exportation.
This database is presently devoted to South Gaulish decorated samian ware which has an ovolo. The illustrations of decorated ware have been taken from scanned rubbings where possible, to ensure accuracy and a fair representation of the condition of the vessel concerned. The principles employed can be extended to other production centres when specialists are available to enter the necessary data.
These vessels carry either potters' stamps or signatures. Data capture started with the name-marked decorated products of the South Gaulish samian industry of the first century AD., and has mainly come from the international Pegasus research group led by Geoffrey Dannell, and the work of Allard Mees (Mees 1995). Additional materials came from the records of Marinus Polak (Radboud University Nijmegen), Peter Webster (Cardiff University) and Alain Vernhet (CNRS Millau - F). The Lezoux archive of Brian Hartley was added with the outstanding help of Robert Hopkins. Products from Rheinzabern were added by Allard Mees, and it is hoped that the database can be extended over time to include all of the other main production centres of Gaul and Germany.
The RGZM database is running on an Adobe Coldfusion server with a PostgreSQL database as a backend. The database concept and most of the programming code was done by Allard Mees. But when it became tricky, Guido Heinz was always available to provide a solid technical solution.
Paul Tyers did - among other tremendous helpful work - the scripting to migrate the original books into Excel format. Also the Samian font to display the special characters was designed by him.Without the help from Wendy and Robert Hopkins, Katja Hölzl, Ulrike Kessel and many others, these digitised versions of hitherto scattered archives would not have been processed so rapidly.