ABSTRACT
Most archaeological institutions now make use of electronic databases for storing information about sites and monuments. Digital media offer huge advantages in storage, ease of access, space saving and, importantly, searching over traditional paper-based media. However, in order to ensure consistency, both internally within a database and between databases maintained by different institutions and individuals, it is necessary to apply some form of data standard. Central to the application of data standards for digital media in archaeology has been the construction of thesauri controlling the nomenclature of site and monument types. The importance of such thesauri lies in the fact that searching by monument type is easily the most common way in which archaeological databases are interrogated. In the absence of controlled terminology, searches of this kind are unavoidably compromised.
