What's new

An update of the Brooch Appendix

03 June 2026

After an intensive campaign to record as many bow broches as possible in the time frame of the appointment by Bram van Heusden we updated the Appendix in which we explain how we recorded the bow brooches (Appendix 2a. brooches (bow brooches garnet brooches) 02.pdf). There are however still many more brooches to be recorded. Our main point of departure is that the usual long names of types consisting of placenames (type Schwarzrheindorf/Maastricht/Müngersdorf) are not useful in a database. We adopted the type indications of Alexander Koch, but they do not always include all types. We created new type indications and added images of examples for each type.

It is important to know that we do not adhere to the acribic splitting up of types on the basis of minor differences of decorative motives.

The next development will be to add the possibility to record motives and characteristics from a predefined list so that we can substitute a typological analysis with a network analysis of brooch characteristics.
 

Glass vessels now available!

1 November 2025

Thanks to the financial support of the Stichting Promotie Archeologisch onderzoek (SPAO) and the Stichting Nederlands Museum voor Anthropologie en Praehistorie (SNMAP) we were able to make the data on the glass vessels publicly available.

There is now data on 3462 glass vessels, and the number is still growing.

Go to ‘Material culture’ click ‘Glass vessels’ and browse through the collection of glass vessels, make maps with the distribution of various types and find out which vessels were found at the sites recorded in the database. There are several routes you can follow by clicking on the images or names of types.

Download the PDF-book The glass vessels of Merovingian northern Gaul to have an overview of the types we defined for recording in the database.

You can also go to ‘Map of Material Culture’ at the ‘Material culture’ page and play with the distribution of various types.

We are working on additional retrieve and export possibilities of lists of data and maps.