About
DIME stands for “Digitale Metaldetektorfund” and is a digital platform for recording archaeological finds made by private individuals. DIME can be used for recording all archaeological finds, but is most often used for finds made using a metal detector.
- used by over 2600 amateur archaeologists
- cooperates with 29 archaeological museums in Denmark
- functions as a digital collection and museum with 100,000 finds
Every year, the Danish amateur archaeologists find 1000s of objects of great cultural and historical importance. They continuously contribute to the emergence of some of the most sensational finds in Danish archaeology. Not least the metal detector discoveries have in many respects added new and hitherto unknown pages to the history of Denmark.
The Danish amateur archaeologists are internationally recognized for their professionalism and the good cooperation with the museums. DIME and the use of metal detectors in Denmark is a prime example of co-creation between citizens and museums. It is one of the world’s largest Citizen Science projects in archaeology.
The idea behind DIME is to:
- make metal detector findings available for the benefit of citizens and researchers
- increase cooperation between amateur archaeologists and museums through co-creation
- upgrade the amateur archaeologists’ work with the finds through ‘crowd-sourcing’
- lighten the workload regarding registration of finds and treatment of artifacts in the museums
- function as an international ‘best practice’ example for co-creation and citizen science (citizen research) in archaeology
The DIME database was developed in 2016-2018 by a group of museum professionals and university archaeologists in close collaboration with detector users and a broad panel of professionals from museums across the country. The developer group consists of:
- Aarhus university
- Moesgaard Museum
- North Jutland Historical Museum
- Museum Odense