Mistakes as a source of knowledge: ACCSN 2.0
The Digital Humanities project “Mistakes as a source of knowledge: ACCSN 2.0” lead by Assist. Prof. Lily Grozdanova, hosted by the Faculty of History, SU ”St. Kliment Ohridski”, was one of the five winning proposals, supported by DARIAH-ERIC for 2025.
The project is the next stage of development of the Ancient Coins Counterfeits Scientific Network (ACCSN), funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. It addresses the pressing scientific and societal issue of the spread of numismatic counterfeits from a sustainability perspective, building on the first stage. The project offers a unique research angle, exploring mistakes (stylistic, technological, etc.) as a source of knowledge for developing expertise and identifying counterfeit markers.
The spread of counterfeits of ancient numismatic items leads to distortions in history, society, and identity. The most effective prevention against these processes is to create a stable, proactive academic network that enables enhanced knowledge exchange and transfer. Another central aspect is developing an IT-based digital tool that would be an active asset against the spread of objects identified as counterfeits. These are the two main goals of ACCSN 1.0, which are further developed in ACCSN 2.0 and will have a significant, positive impact on the preservation of cultural heritage.
The project's central goal is to digitise the most significant collection of numismatic objects identified as counterfeits of the Coin Cabinet of the Royal Library of Belgium (1,242 forgeries of Greek and 2,123 of Roman coinages). This includes on-site processing of the objects using a specialised QuickPX hard- and software system provided by the partner projects Corpus Nummorum (CN) and DigiThrace. After initial processing, datasets are created for each object and entered into CN in accordance with the FAIR principles and LOD.
A further goal is to perform the second stage of the digitisation of the “Callataÿ’ file of counterfeit Greek coins”. In the course of ACCSN 2, the digitisation of the entire collection of info cards as digital cultural heritage objects was finalised and it is currently published as open data on the ACCSN platform. The second stage will transform the data in the info cards into DB datasets, add them to the CN platform, and actively link the stable URIs of the CN platform to the digital heritage objects published on the ACCSN platform.
The third goal, which is currently being actively developed, is a “standardised identification expertise card” that can be internationally applied. A serious issue is the lack of an internationally standardised procedure for counterfeit identification. Activities are underway to define the terminology, including within the Nomisma Counterfeits Working group and the DARIAH Digital Numismatics working group, to address the challenges of terminology and ontology in the area.
Identifying forgeries of ancient numismatic material requires practical work and precise analysis of the counterfeits themselves. Until this project, there was no digitised collection of such objects to assist specialists in further developing their expertise in production techniques and forgery markers. Hence, the scientific community's ability to study mistakes and create proactive prevention strategies was severely limited. The ACCSN 2.0 is actively changing this concept by developing scientific, innovative digital prevention means.
