Linking Archaeological Data

The concept of Linked Data (http://linkeddata.org/)—information structured using a variety of public schemas and data sources—is beginning to take the Semantic Web out of the laboratory and into real-world applications. However, successful integration of legacy data sets requires the separation of the instances, terminologies and (frequently implicit) ontologies that constitute them so that each can be dealt with appropriately. This paper will discuss recent doctoral research seeking to provide practical solutions to this process and give some early examples of its potential benefit to archaeology. The case study presented deals with a number of different databases pertaining to amphora and marble distribution that are being collated as part of the University of Southampton/British School at Rome “Roman Ports in the Western Mediterranean” Project. This data will be used to help understand the flow of ancient trade networks. In order to do this, a guided process, sufficiently intuitive for a wide range of archaeologists, is required to perform the mappings. Steps for mapping both amphora classification and excavation location have already been developed and temporal information will be introduced in the next phase of development.