"Wotta Luvverly Objick" Drooling from the Dumbdown PAS

Head-tapping oddness from PAS

Found by a builder, not artefact hunter, this 'description' (Tile BERK-8B90E8) could well have been written by an archaeology A-level student. Perhaps they soon will be. The claquiers are excited (Julie Cassidy ‏@Julidy1_FLO 17 godz.):

This is a lovely record on @findsorguk ! A #Medieval tile from South #Northants recorded by @AnniB_OxonFLO https://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/record/id/734216 … …

I am not entirely sure what makes the record lovely or unlovely. As I wrote on Twitter, the text accompanying the picture is less a record of that particular fragment which then went back into private hands than a mini-essay (without literature) on tiles and how they were made and used

Paul Barford ‏@PortantIssues 13 sek.14 sekund temu @Julidy1_FLO @findsorguk @AnniB_OxonFLO Surely more "show and tell' than proper professional description of object now "returned to finder"

Objects are not "square in plan", there is no proper description of the fabric of either the tile body or slip. There is no description of the edges, back (mould-made, wire/knife cut, trimmed, sanded). The manner of 'striking' the slip from the surface is not mentioned, nor the depth of the stamp as seen in the fracture. More attention is paid to the picture on the items than the technological and archaeological characteristics of the object itself. Surely the Museum-supported finds specialists of the PAS can do a better job of actually making a verbal and pictorial record of the object itself, its characteristics and state of preservation? No?

And of course the PAS staff responsible for public outreach are pretending they did not see my response, or understood what I said. There was no reply explaining why in a professional 'database' its users are talked down to. Do all encaustic tile descriptions in the database include such waffle? Maybe instead of repeating waffle in each entry, the PAS could do on their website a block of "building ceramics" info pages like the ones they've spent huge amounts of loving (and expensive) time doing for COINS?