All pictures are characterized by keys. These keys are abbreviations indicating material, function, type, potter's stamps and miscellaneous remarks that are relevant for the picture. Typical examples are 'Drag18', 'CELIROS', 'graff' (graffitto) etc. When characters are entered in the search string box, then these characters are compared with these keys.

NOTE: You can always call this page by clicking the Romans in the upper lefthand corner.

By default, the English codes are used but you can also choose for the (original) Dutch codes.

There are two ways to do the comparison: exact and not-exact. When not-exact is chosen (default) then it is sufficient for a match to occur that one of the keys contains the entered character string. However, when the 'exact' box is flagged then the entered character string must exactly equal one of the keys. Examples:

Entered charactersExact ? Keys giving a match
raNoDrag18, Drag27, Drag45, graff
raYes none
Drag27No Drag27
Drag27Yes Drag27

Try for example search strings graff, dish (dutch: bord), stamp (dutch: stempel), iro (dutch: yz) etc.

When you enter more than one string (separated by blanks) then each string must generate a hit. Besides, these hits must come from different keys. In this case means flagging the 'exact' box that you must have entered two (or more) keys exactly as they are associated with a picture.

The comparisons are case sensitive. By convention, the first character of Type indicators (e.g. Drag27, St101) are in upper case, so entering 'drag27' will not yield any matches. You must enter 'Drag27' instead. Or simply 27 (if you do a not-exact search).

(Parts of) potter stamps are completely in upper case.

Hierarchical search: five combined categories have been defined which are used as follows:

If you enterthen you get
anmAll objects with animal decoration
crmAll ceramics
mtlAll metal objects
utsAll utensils
vgtAll objects with vegetable decoration

When the search is done, the number of pictures found is displayed. Then follows a series of thumbnail pictures, with at their right side their complete list of keys. Take a good look at these keys, this will help you refine your searches. Clicking the thumbnail will load the large picture.