Using the Mycenaean Atlas Project – 3

The Find Type table

In previous posts I have discussed the ‘site’ table, the ‘fnb’ (site bibliography), and the‘biblio’ (full bibliography) tables.

 In this post I want to discuss the find type table (‘findt’).  The Mycenaean Atlas Project is a database that is intended to support specific lat/lon pairs for each Mycenaean site.    In addition to this primary purpose users of this DB should be given some idea about the nature of the site and when it was created/occupied.   The find type (findt) table contains a minimum of information about the nature of the site and in such a way that it allows useful join queries.  The fields of the ‘findt’ table are as follows:

a.     Place key (pk):  This external key is identical to the primary key, pk, in the ‘site’ table and the foreign key, pk, in the fnb table.  It consists of the letter ‘C’ followed by an integer.  E.g., ‘C100’.   This allows join queries to be formed such as:

select * from site a, findt b where a.pk = b.pk;  // this will return the combined info for site and site type from the database.

b.     Source (src): This is the bibliographic source symbol for the source which gives the find type for this site.  It is the same as the src field in the ‘fnb’ and the ‘biblio’ tables.  This allows useful join queries.

c.      Page (Page): This is the page in the bibliographic source which gives the find type for this site.

d.     Type (Type): This is a string of up to twenty characters that gives the actual type of this site.

e.     Comment (Comment): This is a string of up to 1024 characters that characterizes the site in more detail and usually as a quotation from the source in the Src field.

Here’s an example of the full 'findt' record for tholos tomb C237 (Koryphasion):

Query: select * from findt where pk = ‘C237’;

C237, S81, 116, Tholos, 'The tholos tomb excavated here is the earliest known in Messenia and may indeed be the earliest tholos tomb on the Greek mainland. '

C237, B, 405, Tholos, ... medium sized tholos tomb, constructed In late MH times. Variously referred to as Korifásio, Osmánaga or Haratsári

C237, MS61, 242, Tholos, '..this is the earliest known mainland tomb of tholos type (in Messenia at any rate)..'

C237, Z, 451, Tholos, '...eines der ältesten Tholosgräber des griechischen Festlandes. '

C237, GAZ, 1, Tholos, '...the early date of the finds that indicate it is one of-if not the-earliest tholos tombs on mainland Greece ... '

C237, A62, 86, Tholos, 'Kourouniotis grub hier 1926 ein Tholosgrab aus.'

C237, OP, 198, Tomb, 'La tombe est qualifiée par Kourouniotis de "souterraine".'

Each record consists of the pk ID: here 'C237', the symbol for the supporting work, the page number in that work, the type: Tholos or 'Tomb', and a comment from the source about this site.  

The supporting sources are returned in symbolic form (e.g., 'S81').  Their short citation forms are:

Ålin [1962],  Boyd [1999],  Heath [nd]   (the PRAP on-line gazetteer),  McDonald and Simpson [1961],  Pelon [1976],  Simpson [1981],  Zavadil [2012]

So, the find type of C237 (Koriphasion) is ‘tholos’ and this is backed up, in this case, by seven source citations.

And whenever you request the lat/lon fields in your query you can turn the results directly into a map.

So, just for fun, where are all the sites in the Atlas that are typed as 'Cist Tomb' only?

Cist Tombs only.  The query was:
select a.pk, a.lat, a.lon from site a, findt b where a.pk = b.pk and b.type = 'Cist Tomb';

Useful Sample Queries using the findt table

select * from findt where pk = ‘C100’;  // returns all the find type supporting records for site 'C100'.

select count(*), type from findt group by type;   // returns just the distinct types and their counts.

select pk from findt where type = 'Tholos' or type = 'Cem' or type = 'Chamber Tomb' or type = 'Mound' or type = 'Tomb' or type = 'Tumulus' or type = 'Cist Tomb' or type = 'Grave';

  // returns the place key and name for all funerary type sites from 'findt' and 'site'.

select pk from findt where src = ‘OP’;  // this returns the IDs for all sites for which Oscar Pelon was used as a source.

select distinct pk from findt where src in (‘S81’, ‘S14’);  //returns those site ids documented by Richard Hope Simpson.

select a.shortc, a.longc from biblio a where a.src in (select distinct b.src from findt b where b.pk = 'C237');   // this join returns short and long citation forms for all the sources used to document site ‘C237’.

This diagram shows the relationship between the several tables discussed so far.

In my next post I'll discuss relative vs. absolute chronology in the Mycenaean Atlas Project along with the use cases that the database must support.

Anyone who would like to have a copy of the MAP database can send an e-mail to bobconsoli 'at' gmail.com or leave a comment on any of my posts.  To run the MAP database requires a SQL server running on your desktop computer.   MySQL is such a server and it is powerful, industry-standard, and free.  

I can and will make .kml or .kmz files, which can be opened directly in Google Earth, available to those who would like them.  

I can also create .csv files for people who would like to import Mycenaean Atlas Project data into Google Earth but would like it in tabular form.

Those who do not have a SQL server but would like the full database in .pdf form can have that for the asking.

If you like these posts then please follow me on Twitter (Squinchpix) or on Google+   (Robert Consoli)

Facebook?  Sorry.I.just.can't.

Bibliography

Ålin [1962]:  Ålin, Per, Das Ende der Mykenischen Fundstätten auf dem Griechischen Festland. Carl Bloms Boktryckeri A.-B., Lund, 1962.

Boyd [1999]:  Boyd, Michael John.  Middle Helladic and Early Mycenaean Mortuary Customs in the Southern and Western Peloponnese.  University of Edinborough.  Scotland.  1999.

Heath [nd]:  Heath, Sebastian.  "PRAP Site Gazetteer" http://classics.uc.edu/prap/static/sites_list.xsl.html

McDonald and Simpson [1961]:  McDonald, William A. and Richard Hope Simpson. 1961. Prehistoric Habitation in Southwestern Peloponnese.  American Journal of Archaeology. Vol. 65, No. 3 (Jul., 1961), pp. 221-260.

Pelon [1976]:  Pelon, Olivier.  Tholoi, tumuli et cercles funéraires; Recherches sur les monuments funéraires de plan circulaire dan l'Égée de l'Âge du Bronze (IIIe at IIe millénaires av. J.-C).  Bibliothèques de l'École française d'Athènes et de Rome - Série Athènes, 229. 1976.

Simpson [1981]: Simpson, Richard Hope. Mycenaean Greece. Park Ridge, New Jersey: Noyes Press, 1981.

Zavadil [2012]: Zavadil, Michaela. Monumenta: Studien zu mittel- und späthelladischen Gräbern in Messenien.  Wien:Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Philosophisch-Historische Klasse Denkschriften. 2012.