ISEGRIM (Informations System zur Erfassung GRIechischer Münzen)
It was replaced by GCAM (Greek Coinage of Asia Minor) http://gcam.hhu.de/
Instructions on how to use ISEGRIM, which is no longer possible, are here: http://isegrim.dasr.de/isegrim/anleitung_e.html
For a discussion about ISEGRIM or to ask for help see the Classical Numismatics Discussion: https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=44094.0
A regularly updated xls list, with more than 6,000 additions to the original Isegrim data, is available on the wildwinds server. The xls file is split into various sections and all have dropdown columns to select the relative information. :
https://www.wildwinds.com/Isegrim/Isegrim_allfiles.xls
Text file how to use the Isegrim xls file:
https://www.wildwinds.com/Isegrim/Using_Isegrim_xls.txt
Working with Isegrim: A Short User 's Guide to a Great Ancients Database
ISEGRIM was an excellent fully searchable union-archive of numismatic sources for ancient Asia Minor (*), one of the richest and most diverse regions in ancient numismatics (even if your coin isn 't from Asia Minor, this resource can help you confirm that, and thus save you time). Unfortunately it comes without adequate instructions, the searchable "known aspects are in abbreviated German, and entries must be formatted exactly. It is very difficult to use without some training. The information, demonstrations, and hints below are intended to provide basic ISEGRIM training.
Logging On
If you want to use Isegrim in English, you want the anonymous index-login at
http://isegrim.dasr.de/isegrim/anmelden.html
Click the
"anonymous, English" button and then choose option "Search Asia Minor."
You should now be on a page that looks like the screenshot below:
If you are like most people, looking at that screen it will be instantly obvious how to use ISEGRIM and no further instruction is necessary.
Just kidding. This page is here because it is NOT at all obvious and the instructions on the page are inadequate. Two questions might immediately come to mind: 1) What is the meaning of those
abbreviations or codes for "Known aspects." 2) What is the format for entering a "Search string" and "Exclusion conditions."
Aspect Codes
Obverse (German: Vorderseite)
VT - obverse type
VA - obverse attributes
VF - obverse field control symbols
VG - reverse countermark (German: Gegenstempel)
VS - obverse legend
Reverse
RT - reverse type
RA - reverse attributes
RF - reverse field control symbols
RG - reverse countermark (German: Gegenstempel)
RS - reverse legend
SP - Games - (German: Spiele)
BN - Name of magistrate (German: Beamtenname)
BT - Title of magistrate (German: Beamtentitulatur)
TI - Title/ Honorific of the town (German: Stadttitulatur)
Mint
ERD - Region (German: Erdteil)
PRO - Mint province (German: Prägeort)
PO - Mint city (German: Prägeort)
PH - Minting authority (German: Prägeherr)
Date
PZ1/PZ2 - Date struck (German: Prägezeit)
Technical Details
M - Metal
GR1/GR2 - diameter (German: Grösse)
GEW1/GEW2 - weight (German: Gewicht)
References
ZIT - collection or reference (German: Zitat - beschriebenes Stück)
VGL - compare with reference (German: vergleichbare Stücke)
SG - coins from the same die or dies (German: stempelgleiche Stücke)
Search String Format
Isegrim
has a powerful but non-user-friendly search-engine that often
acts less
like a guide than a bouncer, shutting you out completely and
ruthlessly; it demands exact input matching the database, but database entries can vary in unexpected ways. For example, you must match exactly the spelling of the city name in the
database, even though various spellings may be widely accepted. Misspelled keywords or legend errors will not work. You can somewhat thwart
the exactness-requirement with an open or wildcard extender (= ".*") at
either end of any Isegrim
input.
Every aspect or keyword should be entered in the following format: aspect code:.*your descriptor.*
Replace aspect code with the appropriate code above.
Replace your descriptor with the coin description element matching the preceding aspect code.
.* is a wildcard symbol when used before and after the keyword. We recommend using it before and after almost every keyword.
Example:
vs:.*antwn.* vt:caracalla va:beard rt:zeus m:ae zit:.*3099.* po:saitta pro:lydia
Less is More.
To get the best results it is
recommended to enter less, but accurate information, in order to define a
coin. Use just one or two keywords to start, you can add more if you get too many results.
We would NEVER use the search string example above. When using
that many aspects, you are very likely to include one that does not
match the database entries. One non-matching aspect means no results.
We would probably start with only:
vt:
caracalla rt:zeus po:saitta
If you get a long list of results, the screen search (Control-F) may
help you screen the results for a more specific term or reference.
If you get too many results, add ONE additional aspect and try again.
Greek Letter Transliterations
Some of Isegrim 's transliterations of Greek legends are surprising:
Θ (Theta) -> T '
Y or V (Upsilon) -> Y
P (Phi) -> P '
X (Chi) -> C '
ψ (Psi) -> P ' '
(two apostrophes, not one quotation-mark)
Demo Searches from the Classical Numismatics Discussion Board
Demo #1 (see first photo) -- Weeding Entries With Isegrim (Re: "Tiberius and Livia")https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=38652.0--- The inscriptions or legends on this coin certainly aren 't that legible, though what 's left on the flip-side (
t 'ea sebas ...) does
help clinch the ID with the
RPC entry (
RPC I 4049, actually not
Tiberius but
Augustus) that I noted in that earlier posting, backed up with a scan. Here 's how I ended up there:
Isegrim search #1:
vt:tiberius rt:livia -- The Mytilene coin this
search turns up lacks a feature the question-coin has (inconspicuously
radiate male
portrait). So I thought I would
search a more basic distinction of our question-coin = a left-facing male
portrait (
obverse) and a right-facing female (
reverse).
Search #1 showed how
Isegrim wants these described (***), and so on to
Isegrim search #2:
vt:portrait man l rt:portrait woman r. This turned up
just nine
types, and
just one
had a matching (
radiate) male
portrait along with a matching
reverse legend.
Demo #2 (see second photo) ---
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=41650.0Searching only what 's clear even if not especially distinctive on this uneven off-center coin
vs:.*ney.* va:beard.* rt:eagle rt:bird fr [= bird front, or bird facing]
we arrive at a few very similar specimens, all of them from
Apameia in
Phrygia.
Demo #3 (see third photo) ---
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=40452.0 [message now scrubbed, but along with third photo below see
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/lateromancoinage/temples.html, "AE 30mm from Anazarbus in
Cilicia,"
types Ziegler,
Kaiser 269, and
SNG Pfalz 6.150-51, as cited in
Isegrim]
A very worn coin, but with one crucial uncommon feature:
rt:temple-front of 10 columns rs:.*kai.*This gives us a few very similar entries, some of them with
reverse legend etoys bs
("The Year BS" = 183-84 AD, also found on the coin we 're researching
[third photo below]), and that date in that form is specific for
Commodus / Anazarbus.
Demo #4 (see fourth photo) -- Info request: Severus Alex from Tarsushttps://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=43379.msg272998#msg272998A very
rare reverse;
just two specimens cited in
Isegrim (arrived at via search-string
vt:.*alexander rt:nike po:tars.*); a quick visit to "
Search Bibliography" (see below) and then a second quick visit to
Google for "Cox '
Numismatic Notes and Monographs ' 92"
supplies us the full reference for the second specimen = "Dorothy H. Cox, 'A Tarsus Coin
Collection in the Adana Museum, '
Numismatic Notes and Monographs 92, 197" -- not too bad for a couple of minutes at the keyboard!
_____
(*) For simple
Isegrim searches (without most of the features detailed in Reply #1) now see also Ed Snible 's
fine entry (in progress 2017) at
http://isegrim.mybluemix.net/. There is a 1999-vintage online description with very brief bibliography for
Isegrim (
Informations
System zur
Erfassung
GRIechischer
Münzen) at
http://isegrim.dasr.de/isegrim/isegrim_e.htmland H. Laabs ' working English introduction at
http://isegrim.dasr.de/isegrim/anleitung_e.html.
I have not found an itemized union-bibliography for
Isegrim
online, though the site collates virtually all noteworthy sources
through 1985 and a few other substantive imprints through 2003 (more on
this in Reply #1); a
good sense of the range of the sources included may be gleaned from the plethora of entries forthcoming for any broad
search, for example
vt:herakles rt:lion. The database ranges from the earliest of
Asia Minor coins (excluding
Cyprus) to the latest
provincials, but
excludes Alexander the Great, for whose coinage see esp. the Price-keyed
Wildwinds entries at
http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/greece/macedonia/kings/alexander_III/i.htmland the more general online pictorial resources (esp.
wildwinds.com,
acsearch.info,
asiaminorcoins.com,
RPC for the Antonine emperors, the British SNG, the
Recueil Général, Imhoof-Blumer online, and the
Weber Collection) at
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=32513.0;at this stage it bears noting that
Isegrim 's place-names may need to be
de-Latinized if you want to access corresponding materials elsewhere online: Cius -> Kios, Cyme -> Kyme,
Cos ->
Kos, Coracesium -> Korakesion, and so on. Here and elsewhere, the same rule in general applies even if you use
Isegrim in
German.
(**)
If you are indeed here to search Asia Minor coin-types (at this point you could also choose
Isegrim 's "
Search Bibliography," which unpacks cryptic
abbreviations),
**The Easest Way To Get Started With Isegrim Searches** is to
cut-and-paste one of the search-strings (in bold) I include in this
thread, starting
vs,
rt, or
vt; once you get any relevant entries at all, you can fine-tune your
search along lines I explore in the demos.
(***) If these were non-historical figures -- mythic persons or
personified abstractions -- the inputs would read instead
vt:head man r rt:head woman r, where as always in
Isegrim searches the multiple inputs involve an invisible "and" (really = "both ... and"); more on classification-distinctions like "
head" vs. "
portrait" at the end of Reply #1.
--- There is after all a way to
search by
weight (
gew) or
size (
gr) as well as by
minting-dates (
pz) in
Isegrim: along with other relevant descriptors, for
weights enter a lesser and greater value --
gew1:3.72 gew2:3.82,
for example -- which are processed as lower and upper weight-limits and
give you everything in between. (If any specimen in a particular entry
has a
weight that 's within your weight-range, it will show up as
part of your
search results.) Something similar holds for
gr1 /
gr2 inputs (see new
demo) as well as for minting-dates (
pz1 /
pz2); from the updated English introduction at
http://isegrim.dasr.de/isegrim/anleitung_e.htmlfollowed up with a trial-run or two, I 've concluded that this is the gist of it: you can input one year, e.g.
pz:18,
in the hopes that it corresponds closely with the date of the entry
you 're seeking, or else you can enter an earliest and latest, e.g.
pz1:10 pz2:60, and get everything that was probably minted in that range for the other descriptors in your search-string.
MAJOR CAUTION: Being copied from a great variety of sources, not all
Isegrim entries include
weight, size, and minting-date specs (though they generally do give at least one or two), so a targeted
search with particular
weight, size, or minting-date specs may miss coins that are actually in
Isegrim. By a similar token, you may miss coins included in
Isegrim if your input includes legend-inputs that do not allow for any variants or faults in the legends recorded in
Isegrim.
HELPFUL HINT:
Subject to the potential exclusions that I
just now mentioned, you can
also employ bounded searches of these various sorts to cut down a broad
yield of results to a manageable size; while a very broad
search, for example
vt:.*os, yields too many results to display,
vt:.*os gr1:22 gr2:24 yields 470 results,
just below the 500 truncation-point.
New demo for size-searches (scan posted below) The coin pictured below is a badly misidentified
Caracalla AE25 -- "
Artemis and
Apollo from Seleucia [!]" -- that I recently purchased on Xbax. Searching
Isegrim with the search-string
vt:caracalla rt:heads 2 rt:head man l gr1:24 gr2:26 (vt --
obverse type; rt --
reverse type; gr1 -- boundary-size #1; gr2 -- boundary-size #2) we get
Hygieia and
Asklepios from Eirenopolis,
Cilicia, which the
legend confirms is correct.
---
Isegrim includes virtually all
Asia Minor listings from
RPC I and from
Lindgren III ("
SLG LINDGREN III"),
so its coverage extends down through 1992 and 1993, when those volumes
were printed, and somewhat beyond (
just two listings from
SNG München (
Munich) 20 [1995] and only intermittent listings from
RPC II, printed 1999; I have noted one listing
corrected in 2001, a single
auction referenced from 2002 [
AUKT GORNY 118 1720], and one study repeatedly cited from 2003 [
ZIEGLER AMS 2003]); many hundreds of entries from
SNG PFALZ 6 = PfPS 6, also published in 2001; you can test other SNG coverage by searching
zit:.*SNG X.* where X stands for the rest of an SNG title, for which now see the SNG titles below in Reply #9). With the search-entry
zit: or
vgl: (for "Compare") and a catalogue-entry in form "
RPC I 2417.*," for example, you can summon up virtually everything else that 's included in a given printed entry from
RPC I;
Isegrim is thus also a
digital RPC I for
Asia Minor, and a digital version of whatever else
Isegrim incorporates, though its uptake of
RPC I seems especially thorough and painstaking.
Isegrim includes some coins not others for marginal figures and mints, for example, "Rhoemetalces" or "
Cyprus"; here you 're definitely better off using alternative sources, not mainly relying on
Isegrim.
--- Field-insignia (
VF,
RF) and
countermarks (
VG,
RG) can be very useful in worn-coin ID 's, but the
Isegrim entries for all these descriptors have quirks of their own; a
good way to explore them is to run open searches with each of the pertinent descriptors (
VF,
RF,
VG, or
RG:.*), and then see what you get. Letter-content appears with a prefix intended to sort letters, values, and dates ("
LET AS," "
VALUE I," "
YEAR GXR" = 163); letter-content in
VF or
RF will also appear in
VS or
RS, but without the fresh prefix (thus
RF: YEAR GXR but
RS: P 'LAYIOPOLEITWN ET GXR). Here is a more or less typical output for an
obverse countermark arrangment; note that each of the terms constitutes a
good input in its own right:
VG : ROUND / VALUE D / ROUND / HEAD MAN L / EMPEROR"Round,"
"oval," and "angular" are often but not always used to distinguish the
shape of a countermark-strike; in this case repetition of "round" means
we actually two
obverse countermarks on the same coin, with "
head man l" and "emperor" both referring to the second round
countermark 's subject or content. These descriptions can vary even for the same
countermark; thus these all seem to be the same
countermark on coins from
Lydia ad Sipylum, Magnesia:
VG : ROUND / HEAD WOMAN R / TYCHE
VG : ROUND / HEAD WOMAN R / TYCHE / WITH / TURRETED
VG : ROUND / HEAD R / WITH / RADIATE Numbers
in parentheses found in some of these entries indicate which specimens
out of several described display which field-insignia or which
countermarks; these distinctions are not always clear and not always
complete, but
still often
help fix a coin 's
provenance.
Isegrim reports some but not all of the
Howgego numbers for cited
Greek Imperial countermarks;
Howgego can thus complement
Isegrim and
vice versa, since
Howgego does not report pre-Imperial coins which quite often share
countermarks with later issues.
--- If you are searching particular divinities ' names it 's important to follow the name with a wildcard-extender, for example "
zeus.*; without that, the
search won 't include special cult-aspects of
Zeus, for example
Zeus Kelaeneus or
Zeus Lydios (other random examples:
Artemis Ephesia or
Hekate Triformis, and remarkably also
Zeus
Sarapis; note that some cultic names like "Kelaeneus" are oddly
half-Latinized). Generally speaking you shouldn 't give up on a
name-search without trying a few wildcard-extenders, since there are
some erroneous name-entries in
Isegrim
(*) and since the formats and spellings of Romanized Greek names will
vary more often than not. (Transcribed Greek forms are favored for
Greek personal names -- but not place-names -- in
Isegrim, e.g. Nikias,
Herakles,
Dionysos,
Asklepios,
but again this is not altogether consistent, as witness half-Latinized
"Hephaestos.") Similarly, if it 's not absolutely clear who is depicted
on either the
obverse or
reverse
of your coin-type, you will need to review all the plausible candidates
till you actually find a clear match; not all beards make a
Zeus or a
Herakles. If you are not sure whether a left- or a right-facing
portrait is historical or quasi-mythical, you should probably
search vt:.* man l or
vt:.* man r, since
Isegrim reserves the term "
portrait" for
portraits of historical subjects; even a coin-profile of the personified Senate is classed as a "
head" not a "
portrait." In connection with two-portrait coins where there 's room for debate about which
side is "heads"
Isegrim sometimes wavers or duplicates entries; in those cases you should always
search twice, switching entries for
obverse (vt: / vs:) and
reverse (rt: / rs:).
--- As I noted in the original posting, in
Isegrim there is often an arbitrary
side to what form an "exact" input takes (even place-names include some anomalies,
e. g.
"Trajanopolis" for "Traianopolis"); there are too many instances for me
to note here, so you will want to note them for yourselves, for
example, "pricecrown" for a prize-crown or
urn, "temple-front of 4 columns" for the (four-columned)
face of a temple, "stern decoration" for
aplustre, "branch laurel" or "
wreath laurel" for a laurel branch or
laurel wreath, and so on. The most singular case I have noted: on coins picturing the Rape of
Persephone, she is listed as Attribute rather than
Type (a mere Attribute at her own rape?), and called "
kore" instead of "
persephone," thus
rt:hades ra:kore, probably
just because Hades is holding her. Deployed various ways, there are other motifs that can show up as "
types" or as "attributes," infants,
animals, or
birds, to name several; since there are a few verbs used to modify "animal" in
Isegrim, i.e., fighting, jumping, sitting, or standing, you may do well to follow "animal" (and indeed other substantives, "
wreath" or "branch" for example) with a wildcard-extender (=
.*).
"Infant" oddly may call for a leading or preceding wildcard-extender
("vt:.* INFANT" or "rt:.* INFANT") to gain access to any tagged
variants, for instance "HORUS INFANT" or "PLUTUS INFANT."
(*) Some stealth-errors in the way names are entered in
Isegrim produce entries that look right but actually aren 't; I discuss one example at
https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=46261.msg289816#msg289816If a
type ought to show up in
Isegrim, it generally will, but it may take a few variations on your search-parameters.