Vocabularies for classicists

Classicists working on digital projects that involve data are encouraged to link their data to the semantic web. If you are new to the topic, start here (Linked open data).

In thinking about new vocabularies, whether for subjects, predicates, or objects of triples, one should begin with a survey of what already exists. By using one another's vocabularies, we reinforce the interoperability, and therefore utility, of our data. And it saves us the time needed to invent a taxonomy.

Sets of RDF vocabularies tend to fall in two groups: (1) terms for items, persons, concepts, and other resources and (2) terms for the relations that hold between resources. The first group correspond to what many scholars call controlled vocabulary, and they frequently show up as the subjects and objects of triples. The second corresponds to the vocabularies used in ontologies (e.g., RDFS, OWL, SKOS), and frequently show up as the predicates of triples.

Resources (names of things; ideal for subjects and objects of triples)

These projects listed below rely not merely upon a unique identification system, but one rooted in IRIs, whether URL-based or URNs.

General

• Wikipedia
• DBPedia
• Freebase
• An extensive list of datasets is maintained by ckan's Data Hub, and is an excellent place to look for controlled vocabularies.

Writing (texts, bibliography, works, text manifestations)

• Linked LCCN
• Marc Codes List
• Europeana -- any item (books, manuscripts, etc.) listed in this catalog is furnished a unique identifier, many of which are URNs or URLs and can be used
• Digital Public Library of America -- similar to Europeana, although holdings reflect priorities of institutions in the United States
• Canonical Text Services (CTS), exemplified by Perseus; see also comments on implementation by Scot Mcphee

Text/object data

Vocabularies for:

• Object and Monuments
  • EAGLE Object Type
  • Art and Architecture
• Decorative features
  • EAGLE Decoration
  • LIMC
  • IconClass
• Material
  • Simplified Petrography
  • EAGLE Material
• Text category or Type
  • EAGLE Type of Inscription
• Execution of Writing
  • EAGLE Writing
• Various topics
  • DAI Vocabulary

Geography

• Geonames
• Linked GeoData
• Pleiades
• Pelagios

People

The Standards for Networking Ancient Prosopographies project is now curating a virtual authority of ancient people using RDF exports from many other major digital prosopographies.

Other major person-data or prosopographical resources include:

• Notes towards the catalog of deities
• VIAF
• ISNI
• Lexicon of Greek Personal Names
• Trismegistos
• Prosopographia Imperii Romani
• See also Greco-Roman Prosopographies

Person data

Vocabularies for?

• occupation
• titulature
• status
• ethnicity
• relationships (e.g. SNAP)

Objects

• Nomisma
• Papyri.info

Topics

• Library of Congress Authorities

Ontologies (terms for relationships; ideal for predicates of triples)

General

• RDF Vocabulary Description Language, also known as RDF Schema (RDFS)
• Web Ontology Language (OWL)
• Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS)
• Dublin Core
• Friend of a Friend
• Cayless, ontology for Linked Ancient World Data (Apr. 2013: preliminary notes for material that will eventually populate LAWD.info)

See a list of others here. See here for a visual map.

Writing (texts, bibliography, works, text manifestations)

It is helpful to understand something about the hierarchy of texts (such as the one adopted by Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records [FRBR]). Vocabularies describing ancient works in the abstract (under FRBR called works) will take a different approach than ones describing manuscripts, papyri, ostraca, etc. (under FRBR called items)

• FRBR-related efforts -- discusses semantic web ontologies that align with FRBR in its goals and reliance upon acronym nomenclature: CIDOC CRM, ABC, EAD, XOBIS
• FRBRoo -- an ontology that tries to synthesize ontologies and vocabulary embraced by libraries (FRBR) and museums (CIDOC CRM)
• Semantic Publishing and Referencing (SPAR); a suite of ontologies dealing with bibliography and citation (see esp. Citation Ontology)
• Open Annotation
• W3C Provenance Ontology
• SAWS Ontology for recording links within interrelated collections of texts

Geography

• NeoGeo Spatial Ontology
• Pleiades Place/Location/Name Vocabulary

For other projects that use controlled vocabularies for linked open data, see the category listing as well as Very clean URIs.