Integrating Digital Epigraphies

http://ides.io Hugh Cayless, Duke Collaboratory for Classics

Computing@hcayless

IG I³ 40• Inscriptiones Graecae

• Volume One (inscriptions of Attica before Euclid)

• Third Edition

• Number 40

IG I³ 40

• IG I-3 40 (SEG)

• IG I[3] 40 (Claros)

• IG I3 40 (OCR-ed form of IG I³ 40)

• and, of course, there’s IG I² 39…

<ides:phi:40> a <http://lawd.info/ontology/Edition> ; <http://lawd.info/ontology/where> <http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/579888> , <http://www.trismegistos.org/place/373> ; <http://purl.org/dc/terms/identifier> "IG I³ 40" ; <http://purl.org/dc/terms/isPartOf> <ides:phi:IG-I³> ; <http://purl.org/dc/terms/source> <ides:t000003n> ; <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#sameAs> <ides:claros:IG-1%5B3%5D-40> , <ides:seg:ig-i.3-40> ; <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/page> <http://epigraphy.packhum.org/text/40> ; <ides:collection> <ides:phi> .

<ides:phi:40> a <http://lawd.info/ontology/Edition> ; <http://lawd.info/ontology/where> <http://pleiades.stoa.org/places/579888> , <http://www.trismegistos.org/place/373> ; <http://purl.org/dc/terms/identifier> "IG I³ 40" ; <http://purl.org/dc/terms/isPartOf> <ides:phi:IG-I³> ; <http://purl.org/dc/terms/source> <ides:t000003n> ; <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#sameAs> <ides:claros:IG-1%5B3%5D-40> , <ides:seg:ig-i.3-40> ; <http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/page> <http://epigraphy.packhum.org/text/40> ; <ides:collection> <ides:phi> .

IDEs’ name for the inscription

associated places

IDEs’ name for PHI 40

Where it is on the Web

IDEs’ name for the same Editionfrom Claros and SEG

<ides:phi:40> <http://purl.org/dc/terms/source> <ides:t000003n> .

• How do we say anything about this “fact”?

• How would we know how we know that PHI40 is a publication of the inscription we’ve named ides:t000003n?

• What do we do if our facts change?

Data reconciliation• We get data from multiple sources

• Every Edition must derive from an Inscription.

• If we don’t immediately know two Editions from two sources derive from the same Inscription, we’ll make up two Inscription ids on ingest. These will have to be merged later.

IG I³ 40 (PHI)

IG I[3] 40(Claros)

A B

Before Merge

IG I³ 40 (PHI)

IG I[3] 40(Claros)

A B

After Merge

Now what?

IG I³ 40 (PHI)

IG I[3] 40(Claros)

A B

Who made this connection? When and why?

When did this become invalid?

What replaced it?

<ides:phi:40> <http://purl.org/dc/terms/source> <ides:t000003n> .

predicate objectides:phi:40 dc:source ides:t000003n

• A property graph (Neo4J) rather than a triple store

• Preserves RDF semantics and can ingest and export RDF

Edition relationship Inscription

Pros• We can say anything we like about

relationships, in-place, without needing workarounds.

• While still maintaining the Linked Data/RDF semantics we want.

• Powerful query language (Cypher)

Cons• No SPARQL (though potential for adding it

later)

• If we use lots of extra capabilities, we’ll need to think about how (or whether) to express them in RDF.

• There’s not a great variety of property graph databases.

Questions• Is RDF really suitable for the highly-

contingent facts we have in the Humanities?

• There are various ways to solve this problem using RDF tools (reification, named graphs, etc.). Should we standardize on one of those instead?

• What sorts of information should we capture about interventions?