What we do
Behind our project name S.E.S.A.M. ("Systematische Erfassung sachsen-anhaltischer Münzen“/ "Systematic Recording of Saxony-Anhalt Coins") is a digitization project financed with state funds by the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt ↗ Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt (LDA) to index find coins from Saxony-Anhalt's museums.
During our project period from July 2022 to the end of 2026, the Saxony-Anhalt Numismatics Collection of the Kunstmuseum Moritzburg Halle/Saale ↗ Landesmünzkabinett and the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation Magdeburg ↗ Fraunhofer-Institut für Fabrikbetrieb und -automatisierung Magdeburg (Fraunhofer IFF) will support us in cooperation.
After the success of the two previous projects Digital Heritage and Rares-Bares, which opened up the coin inventories of the LDA and the Saxony-Anhalt Numismatics Collection, it is now our task to digitally record the other find coins in the museums and archives in Saxony-Anhalt as comprehensively as possible. As an intermediary to the respective museums and collections, the ↗ Museumsverband Sachsen-Anhalt e.V. supports us in an advisory and networking capacity.
more about the previous projects ...
Digital Heritage
Thanks to funding made available by the state, ↗ Digital Heritage was one of the largest digitization projects in Saxony-Anhalt. The aim was to digitally record the central collection holdings and documentation from the LDA's archaeological archives and collections and thus permanently secure the country's cultural heritage.
A sub-project was dedicated to the digital recording of the LDA's find coin holdings. Its coin collection is currently one of the most extensive in Saxony-Anhalt with over 25,000 objects.
In cooperation with the Fraunhofer IFF, the O.S.C.A.R. (“Optical System for Coin Analysis and Recognition”) recording system was developed for this purpose, with which individual coins can be clearly described and identified using an individual digital fingerprint.
By the end of the project in 2018 over a period of 19 months, over 10,000 find coins had been digitized and published in the ↗ KENOM portal under the respective pool "Institutions".
Rares-Bares
The three-year ↗ Rares-Bares project started in October 2020 and was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung - BMBF) as part of the eHeritage funding line. In cooperation with the Fraunhofer IFF, the O.S.C.A.R. recording system could also be improved and developed further.
Based on the previous Digital Heritage project, the digitization of the find coin inventory continued: Medieval and modern find coins from the LDA (around 15,000 in the ↗ KENOM portal) and from the Saxony-Anhalt Numismatics Collection (around 3,500 in the ↗ KENOM portal) should be available in digitized form by September 2023.
The results will gradually be made available to researchers and the public via the KENOM portal.
The find coins we are trying to record in the project date from ancient times to the end of the 19th century.
Until the founding of the German Empire in 1871, there were still seven different coin systems. Trade, which had been made difficult up to this point by the numerous types of coins such as thalers, kreuzers, hellers, groschen, guilders and shillings, led to the first monetary union in the German Empire.
With the introduction of the new common currency “Mark” after the second imperial coin law of 1873 came into force, all coins were designed uniformly and the large variety of coin types came to an end. This year therefore marks the end of our survey.
We currently work in a team that consists of nine employees for three areas of responsibility, each of which complements one another.
- Digitization and recording of technical data with the O.S.C.A.R. recording system
- Provenance research
- Recording of numismatic data via the ↗ KENOM portal
Our work process begins with contacting the regional museums. After we have obtained an overview of the find coin collection in a preliminary inspection, we will work out an individual approach together.
Before digitization, the individual coins are recorded analogously. Each coin is assigned its own inventory number and a QR code for clear identification. At the same time, each find coin is identified numismatically and provenance research is carried out to verify the context in which it was found.
We can also undertake smaller restoration work on the find coins in consultation with the LDA conservation department.
We take possible concerns regarding the security of the coins as well as their restoration and conservation very seriously. Therefore, in addition to digitizing in our project rooms in Halle (Saale), we also offer to record the coins directly on site in the participating museums.
The digitization itself is carried out by the transportable recording system O.S.C.A.R. (“Optical System for Coin Analysis and Recognition”), which generates standardized images for the front and back of each recorded find coin within a few minutes.
O.S.C.A.R.'s special feature is the creation of an individual "digital fingerprint". Any coin that has already been digitized once can be recorded again using O.S.C.A.R. and is always recognized even among other pieces that look identical when viewed superficially.
What we can do for you
We would also like to encourage smaller museums and collections that have find coins in their holdings to take part in our S.E.S.A.M. project. Contact us and we will work with you to develop a digitalization strategy tailored to your needs and the infrastructure in your facility. We draft a cooperation agreement and create the legal framework for successful cooperation.
You give us access to your collection. We take over the digitization and data maintenance and we will professionally sort, re-catalogue and classify your find coins - depending on the work status. It should be emphasized that you will not incur any costs for the entire digitization process and that your own effort will be minimal, as we will take care of all the work processes and logistics. Ideally, inventory numbers and inventory book entries, inventory lists or even information about the location or context of the discovery are already available for provenance research.
We will of course make the digitization results available to you for your own inventory management. In return, you grant the LDA the right to use the digital data.
Our goals
We want to advance the digital and content-related development of Saxony-Anhalt's find coins and thus continue to draw attention to their potential for science and research. The more comprehensively a region's coin holdings are digitally recorded and scientifically described, the more precise and far-reaching scientific conclusions can be derived.
For an effective, long-term secured and high-quality digitization process, a centrally organized approach should be aimed for; also with a view to ensuring that find coin complexes that were once torn apart can be brought back together digitally. The ongoing digitization of find coins during our projects on the basis of a database specifically designed to record numismatic objects has already significantly improved the usability of this type of archaeological source, which is valuable for (art) historical sciences.
A systematic review of the old data in combination with a numismatic re-comparison of the coin holdings - not only of the LDA, but of the entire state of Saxony-Anhalt - is still essential, because: THE RECORDING OF EVERY SINGLE PIECE COUNTS! By integrating our collected data into other numismatic online databases, a solid research basis can be created that makes a holistic evaluation of the find coins in the Central German monetary landscape possible.
