{"id":1807,"date":"2024-08-09T10:00:18","date_gmt":"2024-08-09T09:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/digitalhumanities\/?p=1807"},"modified":"2024-07-29T12:10:08","modified_gmt":"2024-07-29T11:10:08","slug":"classifying-portable-antiquities-with-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/digitalhumanities\/classifying-portable-antiquities-with-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Classifying Portable Antiquities with AI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\">by Mark McKerracher, Abhishek Dutta, Megan Gooch, Helena Hamerow, Horace Lee, Michael Lewis and Andrew Zisserman<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britishmuseum.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">British Museum<\/a> holds millions of objects spanning millennia of human history. But it also curates a unique and precious resource that is purely digital and freely accessible online: the <a href=\"https:\/\/finds.org.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">database of the Portable Antiquities Scheme<\/a>, which contains records of more than 1.5 million artefacts \u2013 primarily those discovered by metal detecting enthusiasts.<\/p>\n<p>Metal detecting \u2013 as lovingly mocked in the BBC sitcom <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/iplayer\/episodes\/b06l51nr\/detectorists\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Detectorists<\/em><\/a> \u2013 is a hugely popular pastime in the UK. There are some 20,000 metal-detectorists regularly discovering things like coins and dress accessories, from various periods of British history and prehistory, in ploughed fields across the country.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1851\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1851\" style=\"width: 328px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1851\" src=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/digitalhumanities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/233\/2024\/07\/Metal_detecting_in_progress_on_a_Time_Team_dig.jpg\" alt=\"Metal detecting in progress\" width=\"328\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/digitalhumanities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/233\/2024\/07\/Metal_detecting_in_progress_on_a_Time_Team_dig.jpg 393w, https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/digitalhumanities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/233\/2024\/07\/Metal_detecting_in_progress_on_a_Time_Team_dig-197x300.jpg 197w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 328px) 100vw, 328px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1851\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;line-height: 80%\">Metal detecting is an increasingly popular pastime in the UK (<a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Metal_detecting_in_progress_on_a_Time_Team_dig.jpg\" target=\"blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Wikimedia image<\/a> under <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/deed.en\" target=\"blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Creative Commons attribution licence<\/a>).<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>From its inception in 1997, the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) has been encouraging detectorists in England and Wales to report their finds for recording in a central database (maintained by the British Museum in partnership with <a href=\"https:\/\/museum.wales\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Amgueddfa Cymru<\/a>) so that the unique informative potential of these artefacts can be fully realised \u2013 both in professional and academic research and by amateur enthusiasts. Photographs and metadata are collected and entered into the database by both expert professionals \u2013 a national network of 40 locally-based Finds Liaison Officers, supported by National Advisers \u2013 and also trained volunteers and interns.<\/p>\n<p>This data entry is no mean feat, considering the vast array of object types \u2013 from any and all periods of British history and prehistory \u2013 that fall within the purview of the PAS. From <a href=\"https:\/\/finds.org.uk\/database\/artefacts\/record\/id\/49483\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">golden Bronze Age cups<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/finds.org.uk\/database\/artefacts\/record\/id\/1167789\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Victorian pennies<\/a>, from <a href=\"https:\/\/finds.org.uk\/database\/artefacts\/record\/id\/1174536\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Roman rings<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/finds.org.uk\/database\/artefacts\/record\/id\/1171814\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">early medieval strap ends<\/a>, it is unrealistic and unfair to expect any individual to acquire the detailed expertise needed to accurately identify all conceivable finds, let alone to describe them in consistent specialist language, and to apply ever-more-detailed classifications and sub-classifications. This difficulty will only grow as the monumental PAS dataset grows every year; and the increasing potential for inaccuracies or inconsistencies could make it harder for the archaeological community to use the PAS as a research resource.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1855\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1855\" style=\"width: 350px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1855\" src=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/digitalhumanities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/233\/2024\/08\/ringlemere-cup.jpg\" alt=\"Golden Bronze Age cup\" width=\"350\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/digitalhumanities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/233\/2024\/08\/ringlemere-cup.jpg 350w, https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/digitalhumanities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/233\/2024\/08\/ringlemere-cup-210x300.jpg 210w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1855\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;line-height: 80%\">The Bronze Age <a href=\"https:\/\/finds.org.uk\/database\/artefacts\/record\/id\/49483\" target=\"blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8216;Ringlemere cup&#8217;<\/a> in the PAS database \u2013 legally declared Treasure (Image: British Museum, under <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\" target=\"blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CC-BY 4.0 licence<\/a>).<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>An assistive AI tool which can \u2018look at\u2019 a photograph of a new artefact and find visually similar items for comparison (and perhaps even suggest pre-populated metadata) could therefore be a boon for the PAS network and its users \u2013 both metal-detecting enthusiasts and professional archaeologists \u2013 by improving the efficiency, efficacy and accuracy of data entry, and by enhancing the research utility of the database.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/digitalscholarship.web.ox.ac.uk\/article\/antiquai\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The AntiquAI project<\/a>, a collaboration between the University of Oxford and the Portable Antiquities Scheme, aims to create such a tool: harnessing the latest developments in image-recognition technology and applying them to the PAS dataset.<\/p>\n<p>AntiquAI is currently in a pilot, proof-of-concept phase, exploring the potential of PAS image recognition. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.robots.ox.ac.uk\/~vgg\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Visual Geometry Group<\/a> (VGG) in Oxford\u2019s Department of Engineering Science \u2013 research leaders in the field of computer vision \u2013 are developing the project\u2019s software. Among the software currently under development by the VGG is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.robots.ox.ac.uk\/~vgg\/software\/wise\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">WISE<\/a>: an open-source image search engine, drawing upon recent advances in vision-language models to enable flexible searching of image content using natural language, and\/or visual search terms (i.e. new images).<\/p>\n<p>The VGG have created an instance of WISE indexed on a very large, representative subset of PAS images and metadata, representing over 700,000 objects (thanks to Stephen Moon at the British Museum for sharing this invaluable resource). This prototype now allows us to successfully search PAS records \u2013 with or without reference to object metadata \u2013 using natural language terms, such as \u2018gold ring with writing on\u2019.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1811\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1811\" style=\"width: 604px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1811 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/digitalhumanities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/233\/2024\/07\/searching-with-natural-language.png\" alt=\"Screenshot of searching the PAS image set using the term 'gold ring with writing on'\" width=\"604\" height=\"380\" srcset=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/digitalhumanities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/233\/2024\/07\/searching-with-natural-language.png 604w, https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/digitalhumanities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/233\/2024\/07\/searching-with-natural-language-300x189.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 604px) 100vw, 604px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1811\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;line-height: 80%\">Searching the PAS image set with natural language terms (Image: AntiquAI project\/VGG; constituent images: <a href=\"https:\/\/finds.org.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Portable Antiquities Scheme<\/a> under <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CC-BY 4.0 licence<\/a>).<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>AntiquAI\u2019s instance of WISE can also take an image as a search term. Here, for instance, we have used a photograph of a medieval posy ring (downloaded from the British Museum website, and previously unseen by WISE) as a search term, and WISE has found visually similar objects.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1810\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1810\" style=\"width: 604px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1810 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/digitalhumanities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/233\/2024\/07\/searching-with-image.png\" alt=\"Screenshot of searching the PAS image set using an image of a posy ring\" width=\"604\" height=\"387\" srcset=\"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/digitalhumanities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/233\/2024\/07\/searching-with-image.png 604w, https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/digitalhumanities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/233\/2024\/07\/searching-with-image-300x192.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 604px) 100vw, 604px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1810\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;line-height: 80%\">Searching the PAS image set with a new image (Image: AntiquAI project\/VGG; constituent images: <a href=\"https:\/\/finds.org.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Portable Antiquities Scheme<\/a> under <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-sa\/4.0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CC-BY 4.0 licence<\/a>).<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>So far, WISE\u2019s understanding of natural language terms is largely generic, trained on non-specialist image-word pairings gleaned from the web. As a result, it cannot necessarily \u2018speak archaeology\u2019. It understands what a gold ring is, for example, but struggles with an anthropomorphic medieval strap end. The VGG is now working on training WISE to understand specialist archaeological terms. If successful, we shall be a significant step closer to achieving AntiquAI\u2019s ultimate goal: the AI-assisted classification of metal-detector finds.<\/p>\n<p><em>With thanks to the Finds Liaison Officers, volunteers and all staff and contributors to the PAS, without whom the AntiquAI project would be impossible.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Mark McKerracher, Abhishek Dutta, Megan Gooch, Helena Hamerow, Horace Lee, Michael Lewis and Andrew Zisserman The British Museum holds millions of objects spanning millennia of human history. But it&#8230;<a class=\"read-more\" href=\"&#104;&#116;&#116;&#112;&#115;&#58;&#47;&#47;&#114;&#101;&#115;&#101;&#97;&#114;&#99;&#104;&#46;&#114;&#101;&#97;&#100;&#105;&#110;&#103;&#46;&#97;&#99;&#46;&#117;&#107;&#47;&#100;&#105;&#103;&#105;&#116;&#97;&#108;&#104;&#117;&#109;&#97;&#110;&#105;&#116;&#105;&#101;&#115;&#47;&#99;&#108;&#97;&#115;&#115;&#105;&#102;&#121;&#105;&#110;&#103;&#45;&#112;&#111;&#114;&#116;&#97;&#98;&#108;&#101;&#45;&#97;&#110;&#116;&#105;&#113;&#117;&#105;&#116;&#105;&#101;&#115;&#45;&#119;&#105;&#116;&#104;&#45;&#97;&#105;&#47;\">Read More ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":902,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"__cvm_playback_settings":[],"__cvm_video_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,98],"tags":[29,36,54,107,110,49,109,108],"coauthors":[46],"class_list":["post-1807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-dh-ai-series","tag-ai","tag-archaeology","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-british-museum","tag-classification","tag-database","tag-image-recognition","tag-portable-antiquities"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Classifying Portable Antiquities with AI - University of Reading Digital Humanities Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"by Mark McKerracher, Abhishek Dutta, Megan Gooch, Helena Hamerow, Horace Lee, Michael Lewis and Andrew Zisserman. 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