OXUS-INDUS. A Linked Open Data Resource for research in Central and South Asian Coinages

OXUS-INDUS项目是一项双轨举措，旨在推动中亚和南亚物质文化的管理和研究。首先，它寻求在货币技术转移到该地区的形成阶段，为了解中亚和南亚的希腊-巴克特里亚和印度-希腊文化提供急需的工具。通过由该领域的两位专家创建一种新的类型学，并使用已建立的基于标准的技术将来自多个公共收藏的多个新编目的标本连接起来，它将使这一重要的证据机构能够以前所未有的方式进行研究，从而推进新的研究议程。特别是希望这将使考古学和希腊-巴克特里亚和印度-希腊王国的历史研究继续从“希腊”和“非希腊”影响的两极分化观点转向文化杂交。钱币学的研究主要集中在政治史上，试图将硬币与文学资料中已知的极少数历史事件联系起来。因此，这个主题早就应该采用非殖民化的方法，远离19世纪由欧洲殖民背景的历史学家创建的系统，回到硬币本身的证据。OXUS-INDUS项目创建的新概述将允许根据这些新方法重新评估王国的钱币学证据，并为研究和分析硬币提供一个框架，该框架不依赖于详细和技术性的钱币学论点。其次，OXUS-INDUS项目旨在将钱币学其他分支中开发的关联开放数据（LOD）方法的最新进展应用于一个重要的新领域。在希腊和罗马钱币学领域，这些方法侧重于实施nomisma.org知识组织系统（科斯），导致研究人员和收藏品管理员的工作方法发生了大规模变化。通过提供一个在线框架来组织多个国家的多个收藏中以多种语言编目的大量不同数据，基于LOD的方法已经打开了丰富的证据，供经济历史学家，艺术历史学家，考古学家和策展人使用。这个机会现在将扩展到同事工作与古代阿富汗，土库曼斯坦，乌兹别克斯坦，塔吉克斯坦，巴基斯坦和印度的硬币知之甚少。通过与巴基斯坦的同事合作，该项目将确保为英语世界以外的广大受众提供可用性，特别是通过开发多语种界面。OXUS-INDUS项目不仅寻求在其他领域复制成功，而且还寻求在此基础上进行新的开发。该项目将为一个古老的古文物创造一个数字化的类型学，并将开发一个基于TEI-EML的工作流程，使这个数字产品能够简单而廉价地转换为印刷品。基于标准的方法使用广泛接受的Nomisma科斯和成熟的Numishare平台，未来还将完全可扩展，将OXUS-INDUS中采用的方法扩展到该地区和不同时期的其他硬币。

The OXUS-INDUS project is twin-track initiative to push forward the curation of and research into the material culture of Central and South Asia.First, it seeks to produce a much-needed tool for understanding the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek coinage of Central and South Asia at a formative stage of the transfer of monetary technology into this region. Through the creation of a new typology of this coinage by two experts in the field, and the linking to that of multiple, newly catalogued specimens from multiple public collections using established, standards-based technology, it will enable this important body of evidence to be studied as never before, thereby advancing new research agendas. In particular it is hoped that this will allow the study of the archaeology and history of the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms to continue its move away from a polarized view of 'Greek' and 'non-Greek' influences to one of cultural hybridity. Numismatic scholarship has generally remained focused on political history, with attempts to link the coins to the very few historical events known from literary sources. The subject is thus long overdue for a decolonizing approach, moving away from the systems created in the 19th century by historians from a European colonial background and returning to the evidence of the coins themselves. The new overview created by the OXUS-INDUS project will allow a reappraisal of the numismatic evidence for the kingdoms in the light of these new approaches and provide a framework for studying and analyzing the coins, which does not rely on knowledge of detailed and technical numismatic arguments. Second, the OXUS-INDUS project seeks to apply recent advances in Linked Open Data (LOD) approaches that have been developed in other branches of numismatics to an important new area. In the fields of Greek and Roman numismatics, such approaches, focused on the implementation of the nomisma.org Knowledge Organization System (KOS), have led to wholesale changes in methods of working, both for Researchers and Curators of Collections. By providing an online framework for the organization of a large, disparate mass of data across multiple collections in multiple countries catalogued in multiple languages, the LOD-based approach has cracked open a rich vein of evidence for use by Economic Historians, Art Historians, Archaeologists and Curators. This opportunity will now be extended to colleagues working with the poorly understood coinages of ancient Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, and India. Through collaboration with colleagues in Pakistan, the project will ensure usability for a broad audience beyond the English-speaking world, particularly through the development of a multilingual interface. The OXUS-INDUS project also seeks not only to replicate success in other areas, but also to build on it with a new development. This project will see the creation of a born-digital typology for an ancient coinage, and will also develop a TEI-XSLT-based workflow that will allow the conversion of this digital product simply and cheaply into a printed volume. The standards-based approach, using the widely-accepted Nomisma KOS and the well-established Numishare platform, will also be fully extensible in the future to extend the approach taken in OXUS-INDUS to other coinages from the region, and from different periods.