Reconstructing Context and Meaning: a Relational Database for Small Finds

This paper describes some practical and methodological aspects related to a development of a relational database. It has been realized as part of a PhD project focused on the analysis of the small finds found on the Cretan sites of Phaistos and Ayia Triada. The nature of these finds and the history of the excavations have led to some methodological choices that will be briefly presented. The first focus is on the contextual analysis that can be achieved thanks to the potentiality of the database, through the management of stratigraphic and spatial data, appropriately normalized from the terminological point of view. A second aspect is the reconstruction of the meaning, and therefore of the function of these findings in their context, which is in itself complex because of the nature of small finds. In the database this aspect is developed taking into account groupings made by homogeneous categories of finds, properly standardized and managed with the Fuzzy Analysis.