Data model for representing historical People in Wikidata

[Anne Chen]

Dear Pelagios Network colleagues,

   I'm writing on behalf of the IDEA Project, based out of the US, to ask for feedback on the data model we are developing for representing historical people attested at Dura-Europos (Syria). Because our team is focused on co-curating a multilingual digital dataset with Syrian stakeholders, we are working in Wikidata (and exploring mappings via WD to CIDOC). 

The data model we have developed lists the recommended WD property to use for expressing major categories of information relevant to historical persons, with notes about usage and relevant qualifiers. We have organized the content by statements we think should be present on all records for historical persons associated with Dura, and others that are possibilities where available info allows. You'll note in the document that there are a few things that are not currently straightforward to model--namely , 1) religious affiliations, and 2) how to connect items for People to the objects (inscriptions, etc) that mention them--where feedback (and coordinated action in WD?) among a larger group of editors would be valuable.

Once we have received feedback, it is our intention to use this map of modeling decisions to establish a Shex Schema in WD to facilitate coordinated work by our community of multilingual Dura editors, and to run semi-automated checks on the content we maintain.

We'd be grateful for any expert insight you all can offer! Please feel free to use the "comment" feature in Google Docs to highlight questions/concerns!

With thanks and kind regards,

Anne Chen