Query for a single attribute

By choosing a single attribute from the scrolling lists in fields: ‘Type of impressed product’, ‘Raw material’, ‘Characteristic features’, ‘Production technique’ and ‘Twist direction‘, and pressing the ‘Find’ button, all impressions characterised by the chosen attribute will be displayed as results. The results always represent the number of CMS casts recorded in the T&S database and containing this particular attribute.

Query for multiple attributes

It is possible to search for multiple attributes in one query by adding more attributes from the scrolling lists in fields: ‘Type of impressed product’, ‘Raw material’, ‘Characteristic features’, ‘Production technique’ and ‘Twist direction‘, and pressing the ‘Find’ button. For example, if ‘Cord’ in ‘Type of impressed product’ and ‘Wrapped and tied’ in ‘Characteristic features’ fields are selected together, all casts with impressions of cords that are wrapped and tied around the sealed objects will be displayed as query results. Queries can be further pre-defined by choosing a site in the ‘Site’ field (single choice from the scrolling list).

Choosing attributes for multiple queries in one field

Problematic identifications of some of the impressed products, raw materials, characteristic features and production techniques appear with the suffix ‘-like’ in the respective scrolling lists. Therefore, a query for, e.g., all possible impressions of textiles requires choosing two attributes in the ‘Type of impressed product’: ‘Textile’ + ‘Textile-like structure’, and selecting the ‘OR’ operator, which queries records with at least one of the selected elements.

The query with ‘OR instead of AND’ option

The ‘AND’ conjunction is chosen automatically for multiple queries in the ‘Type of impressed product’, ‘Raw material’, ‘Characteristic features’ and ‘Production technique’ fields. For example, if ‘Cord’ ‘AND’ ‘Thread’ attributes are chosen in the ‘Type of impressed product’ field, the results will show all casts (3 results) containing imprints of both cords and threads, i.e. spun or twisted products of diameter less than 2 mm. By choosing an inclusive disjunction ‘OR’, the same query will show all casts with impressions of cords or threads recorded in the T&S database (139 results).

Further pre-defining of query results

The fields ‘Sealings with textile motifs’ and ‘Has estimated threads per cm’ provide ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ options. For example, by choosing ‘Yes’ in the ‘Has estimated threads per cm’ field for previously selected ‘Textiles’ OR ‘Textile-like structures’ in the ‘Types of impressed products’ field, the results will display all casts with potential impressions of textiles for which an estimated number of threads per cm was recorded. For more specific queries, chosen values (in millimetres) can be typed into the ‘Min. diameter from’ and ‘Min. diameter to’ fields, and (in degrees) into ‘Min. twist angle from’ and ‘Min. twist angle to’ fields. The results will show all casts with at least one impression of a textile product of parameters (diameter or twist angle) recorded accordingly to the designed query. For example, if the range of values in ‘Min. diameter from’ and ‘Min. diameter to’ fields is chosen from 1 mm to 1.5 mm, the results will show all casts with threads and plied cords made of single threads of diameters falling into a range between 1 and 1.5 mm.

Exporting query results

All query results can be exported to an Excel file by pressing the ‘Export’ button. The exported file contains a table comprising all searched impressions of textiles characterised by attributes preselected in the query. Records are referred to by table cells in rows. Columns correspond to the records fields in the T&S database: A=‘Inventory no.’, B=‘Arachne link’, C=‘CMS reference’, D=’Imp. ID‘, followed by a series of columns with a repetitive sets of data describing the parameters of impressed textiles, such as the ‘threads/cm‘, ‘twist direction’, ‘twist angle min’, ‘twist angle max’, ‘diameter min’, ‘diameter max’, displayed accordingly to the type of impression (single or plied thread or cord, textile, other product) and the system. When the search is not predefined, the exported Excel file will contain all records from this module of the T&S database.

Additional information

All records are displayed with visual, descriptive and numerical data. Visual data comprise a drawing of seal(s) impressed on a clay sealing, photo of the cast taken from its underside and Dino-Lite photos of all textile imprints. In the description, ‘System’ refers to the number of elements of which each textile product is built. Threads, cords, thongs, as well as knitted textiles are built of one system of elements. Two systems characterise woven textiles (in weaves the two systems are warp and weft), basketry and wickerwork. Threads can be single and plied, while the term other refers to products that are not made of threads, i.e. thongs, mats, baskets and wickerwork. Letters ‘S’ and ‘Z’ reflect counter-clockwise and clockwise twists of plied products, respectively, while small ‘s’ and ‘z’ reflect the same twist direction of single spun/twisted products. The letter ‘i’ is used to denote a product made of not twisted fibres.

Numerical values refer to the spin angle (min. and max. values in degrees) and diameter (min. and max. values in mm). For example, a description of the cord on PH 751 is recorded as ‘S/49-52/3.0-3.3 ||| Single: i/-/-’, which means that it is S-plied cord, with twist angle ranging from 49 to 59° and diameter ranging from 3 to 3.3 mm, made of i-twisted single threads of unmeasurable diameters.

Main data fields in the module Impressions of textiles on clay

Access to individual records always requires a consent of the project leader and a log-in.

Authors: A. Ulanowska and K. Żebrowska