Completion of the Coin Inventory Project

The museum is home to an impressive ancient coin collection, with examples of coins from as early as 400 BCE, and as late as the Byzantine Empire. These coins are excellent sources of knowledge about the past, as they feature political imagery, historical references, and cultural symbolism. Until recently, it was difficult for our volunteers to study and assess the coins in our care, because the information we had was stored on hundreds of catalog sheets with paper and pencil, kept in our workroom cabinet. Over the past few months our volunteers have begun a significant digitization project which will allow increased access and knowledge about this important part of our collection. Each coin (all 504 of them!) has been carefully photographed, and all of the existing information kept in the catalogue sheets has been transcribed onto an excel document.

This progress means that we can examine each artefact in high detail, without risking damage or wear by handling it. The new digital catalogue on Excel also means that we can use search functions to scan the entire collection at the click of a button – much faster than reading through every word of every page in our physical files! Digitization is a huge movement in the museum field at the moment, and we will continue this process well into the future.