Dear List Members,
I'm building a database form to patch to a GIS which will in effect act as a catalog of the iron and other metallic finds at a roman villa urbana/villa rustica site. I'm particularly interested in the iron finds and related artifacts. The artifact yield purportedly contains a good sample of agricultural implements, though many did not have their context recorded in the earlier excavations. The cornerstone of my experience with Roman farm implements is the work of K.D.White which is based largely on literary reference and historic analogs. I'm working out from there and do not discard information derived from non-agricultural writers and art works.
My questions to you are . . . What are the essentials of a basic relational database of ferrous artifacts? Where can I study the lexicon of the forms created by the smith? Is there a standard? What are the standard central questions one would want answered as part of the initial recovery and cataloging process? And lastly, does anyone know of site reports or other sources where the provenance of iron tools are reported in situ. I'm getting precious little in context.
Sincerely yours, M.Weinert
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