Burgon’s Expectation: Ancient and New Cartographic Visualization for Numismatic Data and Coin Finds

Using Callegher’s catalogue of ancient coin finds in the Trieste Province of NE Italy from the Ritrovamenti monetali di età romana nel Friuli Venezia Giulia, a spatial database of the findings (third century bce to sixth century ce) was created. The authors later developed a client side Web mapping application. All Free and Open Source Software tools were used to build both a spatial database (postgreSQL and PostGIS) and a Web mapping application (QGIS and Leaflet). The Web mapping application allows the user to find the territorial distribution of Celtic, Roman (Republican and Imperial), Byzantine, and Longobard coins. Each coin was georeferenced and linked to the denomination of the ancient coin, the authority that issued it, the coin mint, and the finding site. This project highlights not only the efficiency of the database methodology in managing numismatic data, but also the great potential of the geographic visualization process to reveal hidden relationships between the finding sites and the data connected with the ancient use of coins (e.g., ancient monetary areas, economic and commercial buffer zones, trade routes).