Method
The register sets down what has been claimed about an object and what that claim rests on. It does not assert that any claim is true. This page explains the notation used on every entry.
Entries on this site are coded against Claim Index v0.8. Every entry states the version it was coded against, because the index changes and a figure only means something beside the version that produced it.
Numbering
An object entry carries a number of the form BP-2026.014.2: the year the file was opened, the accession within that year, and the item within that accession. Objects that arrive together keep the same accession and differ in the final figure.
A type entry carries BT-2026.014. Some claims attach to a series, a model or a school rather than to one object: a mass-produced print, a talking board. A type entry has no chain of ownership to trace, so it carries a production sentence instead of a provenance figure. Where a single named example of a type has its own history, it gets its own object entry.
A number is permanent. It is never changed and never reissued, not even when an entry moves from one kind to another: the old number keeps its page and redirects. Entries are not deleted; an entry that is withdrawn keeps its page, its number and a note saying so.
A submission that has not been entered carries a receipt number, E-2026.0142. It acknowledges that something arrived. It is not a register number and carries no standing.
Two blocks
Every entry is divided in two, and the two are never merged or interleaved. The rule that separates them is mechanical: one capital letter and a number is always a claim; two capitals are always something the register established.
Asserted holds accounts — families P, I, C, T, E, H and X. Each appears with its code and its wording. The register does not adopt these accounts, does not rank them against one another, and does not present any of them as settled.
Recorded holds what the register established or received with the object: the physical description, the grounds the claims rest on, the counter-indications, and its own findings. Measurements are given in centimetres and kilograms.
A code is only assigned where a source attributes the thing to the object's alleged working. Ordinary causation is described in the entry and not coded. A manuscript thrown from a window during a fire injured someone below; nobody claims the working caused it, so it carries no injury code.
The families
Every coded line belongs to one.
Asserted — one capital and a number
- P Perception
- Something reported as seen, heard, smelled or felt in the presence of the object.
- I Interaction
- The object is reported to respond, move or act.
- C Consequence
- An event or condition the account attributes to the object. Only this family carries severity.
- T Transmission
- How the working is said to pass from one holder, place or moment to the next.
- E Entity
- What the account says is present in or attached to the object.
- H History
- An account of how the object was made, used, acquired or handed on.
- X Conditions
- The terms the account attaches to the working: where, when and to whom it applies.
Recorded — two capitals
- MT Meta
- A documented handling of the object: a sale, a legal step, a restriction, an exhibition. Recorded only on sources of weight III or higher.
- CI Counter-indications
- What weighs against a claim: a gap in the sources, a problem with the object, an interest on the part of whoever reports it. Never subtracted from a figure; it sets a ceiling instead.
- OB Own findings
- The register's own measurements, made under protocol. Every finding is published, including one that establishes nothing.
Three separate figures
Every entry carries three figures. They answer different questions and are never added, averaged, or combined into a single score or colour. An entry may sit at the top of one scale and the bottom of another; that combination is itself the information, and flattening it would destroy it.
Claim — how grave the account is
Derived from what the account says is affected and whether it can be undone. This figure describes the account, not the object, and says nothing about whether it is credible. That is what the other two figures are for.
- 0
- Nothing is claimed to happen to anyone.
- 1
- Possessions, or a person’s state of mind, affected in a way that passes.
- 2
- Possessions affected lastingly, or animals and crops in a way that passes, or the mind lastingly.
- 3
- Possessions destroyed, or animals and crops lastingly, or the mind irreversibly, or the body in a way that passes.
- 4
- Animals and crops destroyed, or lasting harm to the body, livelihood or estate.
- 5
- Irreversible harm to the body, to a life, or to its continuation.
Evidence — what the account rests on
- 1
- Statements by those involved, and nothing further.
- 2
- One retelling, publication or sale listing.
- 3
- One contemporaneous document by someone involved, or two independent retellings.
- 4
- One contemporaneous record by someone acting in a professional capacity, or two independent documents by those involved.
- 5
- Independent research that tests the claim itself, or two independent professional records.
Provenance — whether the object can be traced
Type entries carry a production sentence in place of this figure.
- 0
- The object cannot be produced, is demonstrably a different object, or may never have existed.
- 1
- Described and identifiable, but its history is unrecorded.
- 2
- Its history is partly documented.
- 3
- An unbroken chain to the event it is named for.
What a source is worth
The evidence figure comes from the sources behind the claim that sets the severity. An institution that holds an object is a keeper, not a weight: letters written to a museum are contemporaneous documents by the people who wrote them, and are weighed as such.
- I Statement
- A statement by someone involved, made afterwards.
- II Secondary
- A retelling, a publication, a sale listing.
- III Record
- A contemporaneous document by someone involved: a letter, a diary, a note.
- IV Official record
- A contemporaneous record by someone acting in a professional capacity, or a finding of the register made under protocol.
- V Investigation
- Independent research that tests the claim itself.
The top two steps are reachable almost only by the register's own measurement. Professionals acting in a professional capacity record events, not attributions: a fire report notes a fire, never a curse. That is a property of the material, not a fault in the scale.
Counter-indications and ceilings
A counter-indication is never subtracted from a figure. It sets a ceiling, and where more than one applies, the lowest ceiling holds. An admitted fabrication caps evidence at 1. A sole source with a fictional purpose, or an object whose date is incompatible with the event claimed for it, caps it at 2. A claim absent from the earliest sources caps it at 3.
Some counter-indications set no ceiling but are always recorded: sources that conflict, an attribution that has shifted, a motif that recurs across unrelated objects, an ordinary explanation on offer.
A finding of the register that establishes nothing is published as well. It never lowers a figure and is never a counter-indication: measuring nothing is not a refutation.
Custody and the register's own objects
Most objects in the register are not held by it. They stay where they are, and each entry records where that is. The register asks for an account and a history, not for the object.
The register also enters objects it owns. These follow the same rules and carry a visible mark on their pages, so that the register's own interest is on the record rather than left to be discovered.