Reverse symbol, glyphs, and related matters

David

At present, for coin types the fields Reverse design and Reverse symbol both draw on Design - numisdata38 (similarly obverse)
For Celtic coins, we need to record symbols separately, for example "wheel", "torque", etc. We will also need to create glyphs as the symbols cannot be described. This is important as these symbols somtimes act like mint marks on late Roman coins. And if my symbol is simply "o", then it is really hard to search for and enter it (at least I cannot ;-) ) under designs.
I note that this has been raised in a previous thread, but the discussion rather petered out ... are there any plans to separate the fields?

I also don't understand quite how Symbols under Thesaurus | Terms | Symbols fits in. I can create a glyph here, but (how) can I enter it into Reverse symbol?

Help would be much appreciated!

Manuel Gozalbes

Hi David,
There are two separate issues. First, the question of symbols. It is a complicated matter. The first issue is that I still do not fully understand the need for the list of symbols to be independent. It may be a good idea, but it would imply major changes because the obverse symbol and reverse symbol fields are not linked to thesauri, but rather to the standard designs section. A change to a thesaurus-based system would require, for instance, modifying all the websites. Perhaps this is an interesting topic for discussion.

Another question is that there are also fields for obverse marks and reverse marks, which are intended to distinguish marks of an epigraphic type. Here the problem arises that we have still not discussed how to deal with marks on imperial coinage when they are a combination of letters and symbols.
Do you have permissions for that fields?:

obverse mark numismata 1026
reverse mark numismata 1015

In any case, if the designs and legends sections are used, it is possible to retrieve short contents in two ways. The simplest is to search by placing the = character before the term, for example typing "=o". The other way is to use the key field as complementary information to retrieve contents easily from other sections. For example, in the record for “o”, the key field could explain “isolated letter o”, so that when searching for “isolated” would quickly retrieve the record for “o”.
Perhaps these are issues that should be discussed in a meeting.

David

Thanks Manuel. I understand now that separate thesauri would be complicated.
What I would like to be able to do is include these symbols in the way you include the legends in Moneda Iberica. How can I create symbols? Do I use Thesaurus | Terms | Symbols? And how can I then add them to an entry in the reverse design | reverse symbol field.
I worked out that "==o" Finds it. And the list od symbols is coming up when I search.

Alex

A symbol thesauri would be helpful in the way we moved denominations?
For me, it makes sense, just like iconography. However, as we did with denominations, we need to plan it and discus this change from the community. As Manuel mentioned, this is a structural change that will have an impact on the public websites..

David What I would like to be able to do is include these symbols in the way you include the legends in Moneda Iberica.

Questions, do you want to include the symbols as epigraphy? in the middle of a legend? (or at beginning, end, etc.) or the simbols are a specific thing outside the legend?

Best

Manuel Gozalbes

If you want to use symbols in the style of the Iberian coin legends, you would need to use:
obverse mark [numismata 1026] and reverse mark [numismata 1015]
These are the fields that link to the marks section. In that marks section, epigraphic thesauri are used to create the content.
In MIB, we do not use those fields. All epigraphic content, whether short or long, is entered in the obverse legendand reverse legend fields.
I am not sure what the best approach would be for Celtic coinage, but for example it is clear that in Roman Imperial coinage, legends and marks should be treated as independent types of content.

David

We will need to enter symbols both as part of legends, but also as marks (much as the mint marks on Roman coins).
The question is, how can I generate them and use then in the two fields. Hod di yo do it for MIB?
Thanks!

Manuel Gozalbes

The best way to work is to install the two hierarchies, symbols and Latin that are already configured in the menu: administration > maintenance > install hierarchies.
This action will install sections for the terms (sclat1, scsym1) and the parallel models (sclat2, scsym2) After the activation you will need to create the contents for your project.

To organise the contents effectively, it is recommended to create groups that structure the information into different categories. Within these groups, you can include the glyph sheets using SVG format. You can see in the picture how we have organized the symbol glyphs:

An important consideration is that, within the latin hierarchy, there may be a mix of standardized UTF characters with other glyphs that do not belong to the standard. In this context, it is necessary to fill the field typology [hierarchy27] in every record, referencing the parallel model describing the type of record (or entry) are defined. In Iberian coinage, the models we use are the following:

ID	Term
1	Group
2	Glyphs group
3	Standard UTF character
4	Singular glyph

This caption shows the values adopted for different kinds of entries:

The best option is to adopt for your epigraphic models (i.e. sclat2) the same ID and term as listed in the previous table, as this prevents that the web template will be fully compatible with regard to the legends visualization. I hope this has clarified, at least, the main points.