Syene pottery data
Steps carried out by Nicole High-Steskal
Recorded: July 2, 2019
1.) Extraction of lists from MS Access database
* Situation: All data was collected in an MS Access 2003 database adapted by Laura Rembart and Sabine Ladstätter for use with Egyptian materials.
* Issues: The database was in the mdb format and crashed regularly.
* Actions taken: all data was extracted as spreadsheets and imported in MS Excel 2013 (xlsx)
* Reason: improve long-term accessibility of pottery records

2.) Cleaning of data and creation of various concordance lists:
a) Ware descriptions
* Situation: wares were marked with a database internal ID (Kennung)
* Issues: The database field had not been updated to match the dissertation or external descriptors (LCP Wares)
* Actions taken: creation of concordance list of wares (cf. SY_WaresConcordance); addition of column “Ware” = ware name used in dissertation
* Reason: improve readability and interoperability of data; removal of non-transparent IDs
b) Dating
* Situation: no dates appear in the original database
* Issues: dates feature prominently in dissertation; 
* Actions taken: manual extraction of dates from L. Rembart’s dissertation from section “Datierung Fundkontext”. The inserted dates represent the maximum time span, i.e. either the earliest or latest date mentioned. Creation of list “SY_Dating” to reconcile shape type with dates
* Reason: useful information for computational analyses of data
c) Types
* Situation: types created while recording
* Issues: types did not match between database and dissertation; old typology = “Typologie”; “Neuer Typ” = Typologie used in dissertation
* Actions taken: both typology references retained, because old typology reoccurs in some documents
* Reason: improve transparency of data; removal of ambiguous terminology
d) Additional metadata
* Situation: local database did not have fields for general site information; information on creator of information
* Issues: lack of basic metadata; creates accessibility issues if data is merged with other data from other sites
* Actions taken: addition of columns “Fundort”, “Pleiades URL” = persistent identifier for site, “Fundstelle” = internal site reference, “WKT”; “Autor”
* Reason: improve accessibility of data; increase findability of data
e) LCP-URLS
* Situation: the most representative pieces were originally uploaded to the Levantine Ceramics Project database and crosslinked with other data in the LCP website
* Issues: LCP is a rich environment; ensure linkage between our lists and other cross-linked data
* Actions taken: list of uploaded vessels expanded with LCP URLs and links added as column “LCP URL”
* Reason: enhance cross linking --> linked data
* Caution: there might be future issues with these links since it is unclear whether they are persistent
f) Columns partially removed to enhance transparency, for full description of columns see document “SY_ColumnDescriptions”
g) Concordances created in: MS Excel 2013; Cleaned with: OpenRefine; Exported as “csv”

3.) Photographs
* Creator: Niki Gail
* Date: 2012, 2013, 2014
* Equipment:
o Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
o Lenses: EF50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro; EF100mm f/2.8 Macro USM; EF24-105mm f/4L IS USM
o Software: Digital Photo Professional (CR2 to TIF)
* Postprocessing:
o 2012, 2013, 2014
o Software: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Windows
==> Diese Metadaten liegen im exif Header der Images vor; inkl. weiterer technischer Aufnahmedaten.

* Situation: photographs all saved as “jpg”
* Issues: jpg is not a long-term sustainable format
* Actions taken: all images exported to tiff (batch process in Adobe Bridge CS4)
* Reason: long-term archival purposes

4.) Drawings
* Pencil drawings by students (see names in list „Syene-Aswan-people“)
* Digitization by: Nicola Math
o Software: Illustrator CS4

* Situation: drawings all saved as “ai”
* Issues: not an open source format; using images requires Adobe Illustrator
* Actions taken: all drawings were exported to SVG (batch process in Adobe Illustrator CS6)
* Reason: long-term archival purposes

5.) Context and layer descriptions of each area (Areal ##_Befundliste_##)
* Creator: Thomas Koch, Mariola Hepa, and Laura Rembart
* Software: MS Excel 2010