The document discusses integrating digital epigraphic data from multiple sources. It notes that the same inscription may be referenced by different identifiers in different datasets. When integrating these datasets, temporary duplicate identifiers may be assigned that later need to be merged. Storing the data and relationships in a property graph database rather than a triple store allows for more flexibility in representing complex and changing relationships between editions and inscriptions over time. However, this comes at the cost of some RDF and SPARQL capabilities. Questions are raised about whether RDF is fully suitable for representing contingent humanities facts and relationships.

1. Integrating Digital
Epigraphies
http://ides.io
Hugh Cayless, Duke Collaboratory for Classics Computing
@hcayless

2. IG I³ 40
• Inscriptiones Graecae
• Volume One (inscriptions of Attica before Euclid)
• Third Edition
• Number 40

3. 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…

4. <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> .

5. <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 Edition
from Claros and SEG

6. <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?

7. 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.

8. 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

9. 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?

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

11. 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)

12. 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.

13. 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?