New web portal for Thracian coins

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November 5, 2015 – Thrace, comprised of modern Bulgaria, northern Greece and European Turkey, is an ancient region distinguished by 700 years of fascinating, rich varieties of coinage.

The new web portal of the Corpus Nummorum Thracorum project.

The goal of the CNT (Corpus Nummorum Thracorum) project is a numismatic web portal for research on Thracian coins. Thracian coins found in museums and private collections throughout the world are virtually collected in this online database that is free and open to the public.

The portal is initially based on the collection of plaster casts from the research project for Greek coins (Griechisches Münzwerk) at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities together with the coin collection from the Berlin Münzkabinett.

Museums, collections as well as individuals can also document and publish their collections on the portal. Digital publication includes a stable reference number, image, weight as well as repository information and is an effective medium to protect ancient cultural heritage. The database already features thousands of Thracian coins!

The CNT web portal strives to provide a platform for research on Thracian coins. Users enjoy easy access to coins from multiple museums and institutions, are able to insert their own coins into the portal, and delve into numismatic research on types and dies.

The CNT datase interface offers detailed search options.

Users can search using the free search terms in English and German as well as use the advanced or iconographic search. You can find access to all mints by using our map of Thrace.

You can browse through the collections which have provided the database with information on coins.

Selecting the “Collections” section will provide you with an overview of all Thracian coins found in a museum or private collection. Clicking the “Literature” button will display all coins included in one of the publications listed. You can refine the results by using our filter. There is also an option to view and sort your results according to different criteria.

In addition to these search options, the “Resources” section features a PDF library of books on Thracian coins as well as useful links for the numismatics of Thrace and a bibliography.

All the resources are continuously updated so check back regularly!

The database offers much information clearly structured and, in addition gives a unique die number.

The CNT database offers additional scientific value by assigning each Thracian die with its own unique die number. Clicking on this CNT die number will display all the coins made from this particular obverse and/or reverse die and provide an overview of its die links.

You can create an account on the CNT website and then add new coins to the database. This helps to trace every ancient Thracian die and enrich as well as complete the data. Registration also lets you collect coins on your own tablet and save your search results.

If you belong to a museum or institution with a larger collection of Thracian coins please contact Dr Ulrike Peter of the CNT project via email to discuss the different import options.

CNT uses the URIs provided by nomisma.org for mints, rulers, material, standards, denominations and depending on the development of nomisma, will also do so in future for the descriptions, the dies and types using Linked Open Data. These stable representations of numismatic concepts give access to reusable information about those concepts in addition to links to other resources. The use of these URIs simplifies the exchange of data with other numismatic databases and portals.

This is the CNT project website.