A new collection of archaeological information is now accessible online. The Irish Stone Axe Project: Digital Collection has been made publicly available through the Digital Repository of Ireland.
The project to digitise this collection was led by Professor Gabriel Cooney, Emeritus Full Professor of Celtic Archaeology, School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, with assistance from the Discovery Programme: Centre for Archaeology and Innovation Ireland. The digitisation project was funded through The Nowlan Digitisation Grant (2022), provided by the Royal Irish Academy.
The digital collection comprises an image catalogue of 366 axeheads, including scaled photographs, artefact drawings and petrological thin section images of samples recorded as part of the Irish Stone Axe Project (ISAP). ISAP was an innovative project funded by the Heritage Council that established a database of stone axeheads across the island of Ireland.
The ISAP database contains over 21,000 records, making it the most comprehensive archaeological database about a specific kind of archaeological artefact in Ireland, and an important resource for international research. Major collections of stone axeheads are held in the National Museum of Ireland and National Museums of Northern Ireland (Ulster Museum). Both institutions made an important contribution to the project.
In addition to the image catalogue, the digital collection also contains information about the axes including their petrological (stone) source, the provenance of the axeheads and details of their form and size. These are some of the oldest and most distinctive tools that have survived from prehistoric times in Ireland.
Professor Gabriel Cooney said:
“I am delighted that this digital collection has now become a publicly-accessible resource. It ensures that the data from the Irish Stone Axe Project is safely held in a long-term archive, and is available for the wider public and researchers to use.”
The DRI will actively manage this collection and provide the public with access to its contents for the long-term. Thanks to DRI, the collection adheres to the FAIR data principles – meaning that it is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. Each object in the collection is available through a Creative Commons license and has also been assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI). This enables the collection to be openly used with, and integrated into, further academic research and non-academic pursuits while being properly cited and reshared.
DRI Director Lisa Griffith added:
The Irish Stone Axe Project: Digital Collection adds to the growing number of archaeological collections held in the Digital Repository of Ireland – making the DRI Ireland’s leading organisation for the digital preservation of our archaeological sector.
Working in partnership with the Discovery Project has been a privilege for the DRI. We are proud to have played a part in the digital preservation of the Irish Stone Axe Collection and making these images accessible and openly available to all.
Given the high quality of these images, and their vital role in our learning more about prehistoric times in Ireland, the opportunities for collaboration and engagement with this collection are immeasurable. We are grateful to the Discovery Project for choosing to ingest their materials in the Repository.
The Irish Stone Axe Project contains 366 axeheads in total. There are 2302 objects in the collection, of which 1165 objects are photographs of stone axeheads. 375 objects are drawings of stone axeheads and 762 objects are images of petrological thin sections.
The Irish Stone Axe Project: Digital Collection was funded by The Nowlan Digitisation Grant, provided by the Royal Irish Academy, and supported by a number of organisations.
The full collection of can now be viewed and downloaded in the DRI Repository. The project website is available here. You can keep up to date with all of the DRI’s new collections by signing up to our newsletter.
