User:AFBorchert/Archaeological Survey Database of Ireland
At this page I try to collect the necessary information required for the creation of a monument template for the objects of the Archaeological Survey of Ireland (commonly known as the Sites and Monuments Record) which is maintained by the Irish National Monuments Service, Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. This ArcGIS-based database at http://www.archaeology.ie/ stores all recorded monuments of the Republic of Ireland of the period before AD 1700. There exists a different database for newer objects (see NIAH). There was an initial discussion about this at COM:VP which, however, did not yet lead to the creation of a template. Moreover, the web configuration of the service has changed since then. This is a writeup of the current state of affairs as far as I know it.
All objects in this database have an id. Take ‘DG021-008004-’ as example where ‘DG’ stands for County Donegal, ‘021’ for the map sheet 021 of the old Ordnance Survey Maps of Ireland (see here for a set these maps, sorted by county), ‘008’ for a particular site on a map sheet, and ‘004’ for an individual recorded object on a site. The number combined of the site and the individual object is enclosed in dashes. Each of these objects is classified according to a fixed class list. ‘DG021-008004-’, for example, is classified as Shrine.
The ArcGIS-API is supported and allows to retrieve the stored database entry including its textual description (but without images) by its object id using the find method. Following parameters are required:
- Search Text: the object id, e.g. ‘DG021-008004-’
- Contains: true
- Search Fields: 'SMRS' (the list of possible fields is here)
- Layers: 0
- Return Geometry: True
In summary, the URL is fixed with the exception of the object id. Example: The URL to retrieve the record for ‘DG021-008004-’ is http://maps.environ.ie/arcgis/rest/services/NM/NationalMonuments/MapServer/find?searchText=DG021-008004-&contains=true&searchFields=SMRS&sr=&layers=0&layerDefs=&returnGeometry=true&maxAllowableOffset=&geometryPrecision=&dynamicLayers=&returnZ=false&returnM=false&gdbVersion=&f=html
The new viewer likewise supports the specification of the id: http://webgis.archaeology.ie/historicenvironment/?SMRS=DG021-008004-