Presentation given by Doug Tudhope, University of South Wales, at the Digital Infrastructures and New (and Evolving) Technologies in Archaeology roundtable organised by ARIADNEplus at the CAA 2021 virtual conference.

1. ARIADNEplus is funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Programme
Archaeological Linked Data?
Douglas Tudhope and Ceri Binding
Hypermedia Research Group
University of South Wales (USW)

2. Linked Data
“The Semantic Web isn't just about putting data on the web. It is about making links,
so that a person or machine can explore the web of data. With linked data, when you
have some of it, you can find other, related, data.
Like the web of hypertext, the web of data is constructed with documents on the web.
However, unlike the web of hypertext, where links are relationships anchors in
hypertext documents written in HTML, for data they links between arbitrary things
described by RDF,. The URIs identify any kind of object or concept. But
for HTML or RDF, the same expectations apply to make the web grow:
1. Use URIs as names for things
2. Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up those names.
3. When someone looks up a URI, provide useful information, using the standards
(RDF*, SPARQL)
4. Include links to other URIs. so that they can discover more things.”
Tim Berners-Lee, 2006
https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html

3. Linked Data
Best Practices for Publishing Linked Data
1. Prepare Stakeholders
2. Select a Dataset
3. Model the Data
4. Specify an Appropriate License
5. The Role of "Good URIs" for Linked Data
6. Standard Vocabularies
7. Convert Data to Linked Data
8. Provide Machine Access to Data
9. Announce to the Public
10. Social Contract of a Linked Data Publisher
[And now Linked Open Data etc.]
W3C Working Group Note 09 January 2014
http://www.w3.org/TR/ld-bp/

4. Linked Data
Best Practices for Publishing Linked Data
• Use HTTP URIs
• Provide at least one machine-readable representation of the resource identified by the
URI
A URI structure will not contain anything that could change
• URI Opacity
W3C Working Group Note 09 January 2014
http://www.w3.org/TR/ld-bp/

5. Linked Data
“Be unambiguous.
There should be no confusion between
identifiers for Web documents and
identifiers for other resources. URIs are
meant to identify only one of them, so
one URI can't stand for both a Web
document and a real-world object.
…
There are two solutions that meet our
requirements for identifying real-world
objects: 303 URIs and hash URIs. Which
one to use depends on the situation,
both have advantages and
disadvantages.”
W3C Cool URIs for the Semantic Web
https://www.w3.org/TR/cooluris/

6. What form can it take?
• Ontological models, schema, application profiles
– SKOS, FOAF, VoID, DCTERMS, GVP, CIDOC CRM,
schema.org
• Reference data - Knowledge Organization Systems (KOS)
– Classification schemes - DDC, UDC, ILC
– Subject heading schemes - LCSH
– Thesauri – Getty AAT, HeritageData, AGROVOC, UNESCO
– Gazetteers - Pleiades, Getty TGN, GeoNames
• Datasets
– ARIADNEplus - what kind of linked data?
• Combinations of the above
– Perio.do, Nomisma

7. Multilingual mapping via AAT
• ARIADNEplus building on ARIADNE use of KOS Linked Data
• ARIADNE Registry subject enrichment service derived AAT
concepts that augment subject metadata for partner
resources
• When applied to ARIADNE portal this allowed the search
functionality to retrieve records with metadata expressed in
different languages via the AAT concepts - the AAT acting as
a mapping spine
• When applied to the data integration case studies, allowed
the integration of data and archaeological grey literature in
different languages via the core ontology and authoritative
vocabulary resources

8. Map local subject terms to a central concept
“windmill”@en
“windmolen”@nl
“Moulin à vent”@fr
“molino de viento”@es
“mulino a vento“@it
„Windmühle“@de
“väderkvarn”@sv
“melin wynt”@cy
“ ”@ja
“szélmalom”@hu
“veterný mlyn”@sk
“вятърна мелница”@bg
“szélmalom”@hr
“větrný mlýn”@cs
“vindmølle”@da
“15. vuosisadan mainos”@fi
“αιολικό μύλο”@el
“vindmylla”@is
“muileann gaoithe”@ga
“ ‫ט‬
‫ח‬
‫נ‬
‫ת‬
‫ר‬
‫ו‬
‫ח‬ ”@he
“vindmølle”@no
“moinho de vento”@pt
“moara de vant”@ro
“mlin na veter”@sl
The words may be
different, but the
concept is (more or
less) the same…
Now we can include all these variants in a single query

9. Multilingual results via AAT mappings
ARIADNE Portal
Query on AAT
subject: Settlements
and Landscapes
shows
results from IACA
(Fasti), INRAP and
DANS in multiple
languages

10. Multilingual results via AAT mappings
ARIADNE Portal
Query on AAT
subject: Churches
(buildings)
shows
results from IACA
(Fasti), DAI and
DANS in multiple
languages

11. ADS Linked Data (STELLAR)

12. ADS Linked Data (STELLAR)
Examples: Excavation Cuts and one particular Cut

13. Challenges - Opportunities?
• “There is a widespread notion of an unfavourable ratio of costs
compared to benefits of employing Semantic Web / Linked Data
standards for information management, publication and
integration.
• …
• Major benefits of Linked Data can be gained from integration of
heterogeneous collections/ databases and enhanced services
through combining own and external data. But examples that
clearly demonstrate such benefits for archaeological data are
needed.”
Towards a Web of Archaeological Linked Open Data,
ARIADNE WP15 Study, Guntram Gesser, 2016
• What examples currently demonstrate the benefits?
• What form should Linked Data take in ARIADNEPlus?
• Strict definition of Linked Data or a looser notion of linking data?

14. What Strategy for ARIADNEplus?
• Seems clear how A+ can use Semantic (Ontology)
Frameworks and (KOS) Reference Data to good advantage
But less clear as regards the data itself
• What granularity of data should be accessible via
dereferenceable URIs?
• Only metadata?
• fine data granularity?
• important individual data elements (finds)?

15. What Strategy for ARIADNEplus?
For semantic data integration:
• Emphasis on collection level metadata?
• Option to download (RDF) dataset?
• Conventional Linked Data server?
• SPARQL endpoint (with URIs for data items)?
– How to make it accessible to wider community?
• API based on semantic framework
• All of the above?

16. References
• ARIADNEplus. https://ariadne-infrastructure.eu
• ARIADNEplus Portal. https://portal.ariadne-infrastructure.eu
• Hypermedia research group. http://hypermedia.research.southwales.ac.uk/kos/
Related publications
• Binding C. & Tudhope D. 2016. Improving Interoperability using Vocabulary
Linked Data. International Journal on Digital Libraries, 17(1), 5-21
• Binding C, Tudhope D, Vlachidis A. (2018) A study of semantic integration across
archaeological data and reports in different languages. Journal of Information
Science, Sage. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551518789874
Open Access versions available from https://bit.ly/2ocaHC6

17. THANK YOU!
ARIADNEplus is a project funded by the European Commission
under the H2020 Programme, contract no. H2020-INFRAIA-2018-1-
823914.
The views and opinions expressed in this presentation are the sole
responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views
of the European Commission.
Contact:
douglas.tudhope@southwales.ac.uk
ceri.binding@southwales.ac.uk
http://www.ariadne-infrastructure.eu/