Technical Design

This page describes a technical approach for implementing the data structures and approaches defined during the 18-month project and three international, interdisciplinary Institutes in London, Athens and Umeå.

Scope

The solutions detailed here are a Proof-of-Concept, designed to be implemented fully at a later date. They are, to an extent agnostic regarding specific software and for the most part employ general principles applicable to graph databases and relational databases to represent the structure.

Data Types and Relationships

Conceptual Object - in a single graph this represents the enduring concept that persists throughout the the metakinetic pathway. In the case of the Dancing Faun it is used to refer to a mythical persona for which a continuous artistic representation is evident. An object which represents a continuous and distinct identity and concept, even allowing for reproduction, modification , and adaptation. The Conceptual Object receives incoming links from Instances as instance_of

Instance - a specific rendering of a Conceptual Object, e.g. a sketch of a reproduction of the Dancing Faun now in a public collection. The Instance can recieve 1..n inbound links from Segments as pathway_of. The Instance may also exhibit outbound links to a Style as has_style.

Style - an identifiable style or tradition in which an Instance has been made. The Style has an external URI to the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus.

Segment - an event or episode in the metakinetic pathway of the Conceptual Object linked to an Instance of the Object. In the Dancing Faun example the Instance represented by the Pompeii Faun exhibits inbound links from four Segments i.e. Creation, Burial, Excavation, and relocation to a museum. A Segment can also exhibit a link to another Segment indicating its relative chronology as is_contemporary_to or follows_chronologically. A Segment can link to a Location via the outbound relationships has_start_location or has_end_location. A Segment can link to a LocationType via the outbound relationship has_location_type. A Segment can link to a Chronology via the outbound relationship has_chronology. A Segment can link to many EventType via the outbound relationship has_event_type. A Segment can link to many References via the outbound relationship has_reference.

Location - this can be the starting or ending location for the event or episode defined in a segment. The the segment mayhave the same starting and ending location. Multiple locations might be appropriate if the instance is broken into pieces or conversely reassembled from multiple parts. Various gazetteers might provide a URI for an established location. Where possible, a Pleiades ID will also be associated with the Location. Location may have an outbounf link via has_location_type to a LocationType

LocationType - links to a Location and has a URI property to a controlled vocabulary.

Chronology - this is a conceptual temporal timeframe during which the episode represented by the Segment occurred. Periodo is generally used to provide a URI for a Chronology.

EventType - this is a CIDOC-CRM standard code. A Segment might link to several EventTypes

Reference - self-explanatory.

Interconnectivity

In order to trace connectivity across multiple Conceptual Objects the nodes are theoretically unique, e.g. Segments that have the EventType ‘Creation’ will link to the same node representing that EventType. Through these relationships it is also feasible to follow connections between ConceptualObjects based on Location, Style, Chronology etc.