From relational databases to linked data in epigraphy: Hispania epigraphica online

Abstract

Epigraphic databases store metadata and digital representations of inscriptions for information purposes, heritage conservation or scientific use. At present, there are several of such databases available, but our focus is on those that are part of the EAGLE consortium, which aims to make available the epigraphy from the ancient classical civilization. Right now, the EAGLE partners share a basic data schema and an agreement on workload and responsibilities, but each repository has it own storage structure, data identification system and even its different idea of what an epigraphic database is or should be. Any of these aspects may lead to redundancy and hampers search and linking. This paper describes a system implementation for epigraphic data sharing as linked data. Although the described system was tested on a specific database, i.e. Hispania Epigraphica Online, it could be easily tailored to other systems, enabling the advantage of semantic search on several disparate databases. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.