Summer2019 Session8

Sunoikisis Digital Classics, Summer 2019

Session 8. Peripleo and Linked Open Data (OAD) for Archaeology

Thursday May 23, 17:00 - 18:15 CEST

Convenor: Chiara Palladino (Furman University)

YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIlQkwluN9A

Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1y-JiK0MTdNbKKVtivseVrv0B7PlnakGXcgj-7w5GdRQ/edit?usp=sharing

Session outline

This session will illustrate an experiment using Linked Open Data to research cultural heritage sites in the classroom. In the course of the semester, we created several student projects focusing on specific sites by collecting data from LOD-based resources in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage in general. We used Peripleo, a Linked Open Data search engine, to navigate into the complexity of several databases and to leverage the difficulty of linking together very different resources. In the first part of the session, we will shortly introduce the essential concepts of Linked Open Data and how Peripleo uses this technology to connect cultural heritage databases compliant to the same standard. We will give insights into four projects of students, focusing on different sites. Finally, we will draw some conclusions on the usefulness of this technology as a way for enhancing student research based on Linked Data, and will focus on some issues in currently available resources.

• Introduction to Linked Open Data
• The Pelagios Project
• Peripleo 2.0: A Linked Open Data search Engine
• Peripleo and LOD in the classroom: an experiment in Classical Archaeology
• Student projects: Alexandria in Egypt, Herculaneum, Ostia Antica, Eleusis
• Conclusions and feedback

Seminar readings

• Chiara Palladino. 2019. Linked Open Data to Navigate the Past: Using Peripleo in class. Pelagios Commons Blog.
• Rebecca M. Seifried. 2014. Linked Open Data for the Uninitiated. ISAW Papers 7: 26.
• Rainer Simon, Leif Isaksen, Elton Barker, Pau de Soto Cañamares. 2016. Peripleo: a Tool for Exploring Heterogeneous Data through the Dimensions of Space and Time. In Code4Lib Issue 31 (2016-01-28). ISSN 1940-5758.
• Rainer Simon, Leif Isaksen, Elton Barker, Pau de Soto Cañamares. 2014. Pelagios and the emerging graph of ancient world data. WebSci ’14: Proceedings of the 2014 ACM conference on Web science, ACM, pp. 197–201.

Further reading

• See also the previous SunoikisisDC session on Linked Open Data for Cultural Heritage, hosted by Valeria Vitale, Gabriel Bodard, Hugh Cayless, Tom Elliott, Andrew Meadows, Jonathan Prag, Charlotte Tupman.
• Tim Berners-Lee. 2006. Linked Data. W3C.org.
• Gabriel Mckee. 2019. The Map as a Search Box: Using Linked Data to Create a Geographic Discovery System. In Information Technology and Libraries, 38(1), 40-52. https://doi.org/10.6017/ital.v38i1.10592.
• Keith May, Ceri Binding, Doug Tudhope. 2015. Barriers and Opportunities for Linked Open Data Use in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage. Archäologische Informationen, 38: 173-184.
• Sean Bechhofer et al. 2013. Why Linked Data is not Enough for Scientists. Future Generation Computer Systems, 29(2): 599-611.

Exercise and Essay title

Tell a story with material culture

1. Look up a site on Peripleo.

Hint: Check out the instructions on How to search Archaeological Objects through Linked Open Data, to help yourself navigate through the various resources.

2. Choose five objects that represent some historical information about that place, for example:

• A monument
• A mosaic or painting
• A coin (or coins)
• A colony, or an important nearby settlement
• An inscription
• Pottery
• A sculpture
• An extensive reference in a Classical text

Remember the chronological information for the objects you selected: not all of them may belong to the same historical period!

3. Create a schematic card for each item with the essential information about it: you have to include at least:

• Name or title of the object (name of the author and work for references to Classical texts)
• Date (or date range)
• Short description
• Image or text citation
• Site of finding
• Site or museum/archive of preservation
• Source URL

4. Write a short paper, explaining how and why each of these objects tells something about the history of that place. Include the item cards.