Graves Ontology Specification - 1.0 - Halloween Edition

An ontology to markup information on human remains, graves, cemeteries, monuments and cenotaphs.

Working Draft — 31 October 2012

This version:: http://rdf.muninn-project.org/ontologies/graves-20121031.html (owl)
Latest version:: http://rdf.muninn-project.org/ontologies/graves.html (owl)
Previous version:: http://rdf.muninn-project.org/ontologies/graves-20120118.html (owl)
Last Update: 1.0: Date: 31 October 2012
Authors:: Robert Warren, The Muninn Project
Contributors:: Mary Jackes, Department of Anthropology, University of Waterloo

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons / Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Abstract

This specification defines a set of classes and properties that structure information about human remains.

Status of this Document

This document is a standard that was developed after some conversations at the LODLAM meeting in San Francisco and the email exchanges that followed. While minor modifications will be made over time, this ontology should be mature.

Comments are welcome at data@muninn-project.org.

1. Introduction
2. New in this version
3. Ontology objectives and limitations
4. Basic ontological constructs

4.1. List of ontology terms:

5. Ontology use cases
6. Examples

6.1. The grave of the Unknown Soldier, A Running Example
6.2. A lone grave in the forest, A Simple Example
6.3. CIBC Waterloo Branch Plaque, Medium Example
6.4. Soviet Cemetery in Weimar, A Complete Cemetery Example
6.5. The Canadian War Memorial, Disinterment Example
6.6. Kitchener Cenotaph, Multiple Monument Movement Example
6.7. Halifax Boer War Memorial, A Very Complex Example
6.8. Halifax Holy Cross, A Cemetery Example
6.9. Dalhousie University Great War Memorial, Plaque Example
6.10. Submarine U86, A ShipWreck Example
6.11. The Cambridge War Memorial, A Commemorative Statue Example
6.12. The Cambridge Gasworks Memorial, A Memorial By A Disbanded Organization

7. Cross-reference for Graves classes and properties
8. Conclusion and future work
9. Deprecation cross-reference

1. Introduction

This project was created as a result of some of the data and modelling problems encountered in the Muninn WW1 Project with respects to the treatment of the remains of soldiers on the battlefield. The Great War was one of the first conflicts where an attempt was made to locate the final resting places of soldiers killed on the battlefield. The scope of the conflict was such that the registration and management of graves and cemeteries required (in the experience of the British Empire) the creation of a commission whose work is still ongoing in 2011.

The modelling of the processes of death, burial, re-interment as well of the erection of various monuments, markers and cenotaph became too complex for simple event-style data structures. Furthermore, a portable ontology unrelated to the original project goals became desirable to develop simple linkages to other projects.

Namespaces used within the examples

The following name spaces are used within the rdf examples within this documentation:

Namespace	url	Name
http://rdf.muninn-project.org/ontologies/organization#	org	Civilian Organizations	(FOAF Subclasses)
http://rdf.muninn-project.org/ontologies/military#	mil	Military Ontology	(FOAF Subclasses)
http://xmlns.com/foaf/spec/	foaf	Friend of a Friend
http://dbpedia.org/resource/	dbpedia	DBpedia.org
http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/	dc	Dublin Core
http://iptc.org/std/rNews/2011-10-07#	rnews	IPTC Rnews Markup
http://www.w3.org/2003/01/geo/wgs84_pos#	geo	W3 Geolocation Markup
http://www.geonames.org/ontology	gn	Geonames Ontology

2. New in this version

The 1.0 version of this ontology has been updated with some new classes related to war graves, military cemeteries and ship wrecks. A new hasState property has been added that can record the state of the monument (built, ruined, destroyed) and in conjunction with the next_instance, previous_instances can be used to record lightweight events occurring to monuments. A startDate and endDate were also added to record construction or observation date.

A number of properties were deprecated and can be cross referenced here here, the ontology provides appropriate equivalences mapping for all deprecated properties or classes.

An update sparql (1.0) script is provided to update deprecated items from the previous version whenever possible, you'll need to add your graph names to the script to keep your database consistent. Be sure to check the script before you run it.

3. Ontology objectives and limitations

The initial design objectives for the ontology were:

The ability to markup simple grave information without excessive overhead.
Provide a framework to reference graves, cemeteries and remains within other data-sets.
Enable a data provider to explicitly mark grave location information as being obfuscated for privacy reasons, as in the case of an active archaeological dig on private property.
Provide an ontological structure that has the necessary hooks for future reasoning.
Identity can be referenced both through the monument commemoration or through the remains in the grave. This provides a convenient means of dealing with misidentified corpses.
Enable the use of tombstones and memorials as a data integration point for individuals referenced in different data sets.

A number of issues and corner cases aren't currently addressed.

The orientation of the remains within a grave is not currently recorded.
Grave location represents a difficulty is that there is no unified standard for archaeological digs and cemetery plots. Assigning basic longitude and latitude is possible through the hasLocation sub properties but it may be desirable to record the native grid coordinates through the use of an hasLocation property with a string. An additional property hasMap exists to provide a reference to an image of the cemetery map or computer readable coordinate system class.
Remains can be marked as being partial, where less than the complete skeleton is present within the grave. This deals neatly with mass graves but does not document what was actually found in the grave. A complete forensic description is beyond the scope of this ontology.

4. Basic ontological constructs

The philosophy of the graves ontology is to provide a basic set of classes that represent most of the information necessary to identify a grave of interest and describe its physical location.

Graves makes use of the OWL ontological markup and has four basic groups of objects: cemeteries and/or archaeological digs, graves, remains (skeletons or ashes) and monuments.

Click for a large plot of classes, instances and properties

Cemeteries and archaeological digs are the primary location where graves and remains are to be found and the administrative unit that maintains them. Depending on the end application, these classes may be considered subclasses of geographical features, organizations or projects.

A grave is defined as a receptacle for human remains. Subclasses are used for cases of Empty Graves or Mass Graves.

Human remains are classes which deal with full skeletons, the partial remains of a human being (especially in the case of some arch digs) and their ashes after creation.

Lastly, most graves or death are commemorated in some way through the use of a Tombstone or some sort of Monument. In all cases, the ontology supports the description of the movement or rearrangement over time.

4.1. List of ontology terms:

Classes: Ashes, Burial_mound, Cemetery, Cenotaph, Churchyard, Container_for_human_remains, Crypt, Dead_people_place, Dig_site, EmptyGrave, Grave, Gravestone, Graveyard, Headstone, Mass_grave, Memorial, MilitaryCemetery, Monument, ObjectState, Ossuary, Partial_remains, Plaque, Remains, Sarcophagus, ShipWreck, Shrine, Skeleton, Statue, Tombstone, Tumulus, WarGrave,

Properties: atDepth, containsGrave, containsRemains, denomination, endDate, epitaph, graveContainedIn, hasBottomPart, hasCommemoration, hasEastFace, hasFrontFace, hasLocation, hasLocationObfuscated, hasMap, hasNorthFace, hasPart, hasRearFace, hasSouthFace, hasState, hasTopPart, hasWestFace, hisRemains, id, inscription, isBottomPartOf, isCommemorationOf, isEastFaceOf, isFrontFaceOf, isNorthFaceOf, isPartOf, isRearFaceOf, isRemainsOf, isSouthFaceOf, isTopPartOf, isWestFaceOf, monument_title, movedFrom, movedTo, remainsIn, siteName, startDate,

Instances: Abandoned, Burned, Demolished, Eliminated, Rebuilt, Ruins, Servicable, Unbuilt, UnServicable, Wrecked,

5. Ontology use cases

Use cases specific to Graves:

Identify individuals not referenced in the official rolls through their commemoration on monuments.
Provide hooks for the linkages of identity of individuals by referencing a specific artifact on which their name appears.
Provide point of interest data in a format that permits faceted retrieval.
When identity, location or any another item is unknown or ambiguous provide the hooks that allow for machine resolution of the ambiguity.

6. Examples

6.1. The grave of the Unknown Soldier, A Running Example

We start with a grave, with someone's remains in it. The urls are shortened to look pleasing.

the FOAF ontology to point to a picture of the grave.

    
  <graves:Grave rdf:about="The Specific Grave">
   <graves:hasLocation>C6</graves:hasLocation>
   <graves:containsRemains>
    <graves:Skeleton rdf:about="Those Specific Remains">
   </graves:containsRemains>
  </graves:Grave>

Next, we add the tombstone that was erected over the grave and record it inscription. We have a picture of the tombstone so we add a depiction of it.

    
<graves:Grave rdf:about="The Specific Grave">
 <graves:hasCommemoration>
  <graves:Tombstone rdf:about="The Specific Tombstone">
   <graves:inscription>A Canadian Soldier of the Great War</graves:inscription>
   <graves:epitaph>Known unto God</graves:epitaph>
   <foaf:depiction rdf:resource="Picture of the Tombstone"/>
  </graves:Tombstone> 
 </graves:hasCommemoration>
 <graves:containsRemains>
  <graves:Skeleton rdf:about="Those Specific Remains"/>
 </graves:containsRemains>
</graves:Grave>

Thus the grave contains a skeleton of an unknown Canadian soldier and has a tombstone marking it. Because we do not know the identity of the fallen soldier, it is not possible to put a name to the remains. However we can pro-actively create an instance of the person and add what we do know about this soldier to that reference. This would look like:

    
<graves:Grave rdf:about="The Specific Grave">
 <graves:hasCommemoration>
  <graves:Tombstone rdf:about="The Specific Tombstone">
   <graves:inscription>A Canadian Soldier of the Great War</graves:inscription>
   <graves:epitaph>Known unto God</graves:epitaph>
   <foaf:depiction rdf:resource="Picture of the Tombstone"/>
  </graves:Tombstone> 
 </graves:hasCommemoration>
 <graves:containsRemains>
  <graves:Skeleton rdf:about="Those Specific Remains">
   <graves:isRemainsOf>
    <mil:Soldier rdf:about="This Unknown Soldier">
     <mil:name>A unidentified soldier of the Great War</mil:name>
     <org:allegiance rdf:resource="Canada as it was in 1918"/>       
    </mil:Soldier>
   </graves:isRemainsOf>
  </graves:Skeleton> 
 </graves:containsRemains>
</graves:Grave>

We could have taken this example a little further and added that 1) the soldier should have been born at a minimum before 1902 (you would need to be 16 to look old enough to enlist) and 2) male (this *is* the first world war). Why is this important? Later on, this will allows anyone to reconcile their list of lost soldiers with our lost soldier because we are providing a unique identifier for that person (which someone else can reference) and providing other with what we know about them (e.g.: A German Red Cross Nurse missing in action from that period would obviously not be a match).

Lastly, the grave is contained within the Givenchy Road Canadian Cemetery in France in location C6. The final markup for this example is thus:

    

<graves:MilitaryCemetery rdf:about="Givenchy Cemetery">
 <graves:siteName>Givenchy Road Canadian Cemetery<graves:siteName>
 <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Givenchy Road Canadian Cemetery (France)<rdfs:label>  
 <graves:hasLocation>
  <geo:Point rdf:about="Cemetery Location">
   <geo:lat>50.37599</geo:lat>
   <geo:long>2.76452</geo:long>
  <geo:Point>
 </graves:hasLocation>
 <graves:containsGrave>
  <graves:Grave rdf:about="The Specific Grave">
   <graves:hasLocation>C6</graves:hasLocation>
   <graves:hasCommemoration>
    <graves:Tombstone rdf:about="The Specific Tombstone">
     <graves:inscription>A Canadian Soldier of the Great War</graves:inscription>
     <graves:epitaph>Known unto God</graves:epitaph>
     <foaf:depiction rdf:resource="Picture of the Tombstone"/>
    </graves:Tombstone> 
   </graves:hasCommemoration>
   <graves:containsRemains>
    <graves:Skeleton rdf:about="Those Specific Remains">
    <graves:isRemainsOf>
     <mil:Soldier rdf:about="This Unknown Soldier">
      <mil:name>A unidentified soldier of the Great War</mil:name>
      <org:allegiance rdf:resource="Canada as it was in 1918"/>       
     </mil:Soldier>
    </graves:isRemainsOf>
   </graves:Skeleton> 
  </graves:containsRemains>
 </graves:Grave>
<graves:MilitaryCemetery>

The complete RDF dump of this example can be queried here.

We can extend the rdf with some owl statements to encode more knowledge within the markup. Taking the previous example, we can restrict the potential identity of the remains within the grave to the set of soldiers that are known to be missing in action. The markup gets rather ugly in OWL for large collections of missing soldiers, but this is why we have a machine do it.

<graves:Grave rdf:about="The Specific Grave">
 <graves:hasLocation>C6</graves:hasLocation>
 <graves:hasCommemoration>
  <graves:Tombstone rdf:about="The Specific Tombstone">
   <graves:inscription>A Canadian Soldier of the Great War</graves:inscription>
   <graves:epitaph>Known unto God</graves:epitaph>
   <foaf:depiction rdf:resource="Picture of the Tombstone"/>
  </graves:Tombstone> 
 </graves:hasCommemoration>
 <graves:containsRemains>
  <graves:Skeleton rdf:about="Those Specific Remains">
   <graves:isRemainsOf<
    <mil:Soldier rdf:about="This Unknown Soldier"<
     <owl:oneOf rdf:parseType="Collection">
      <owl:Thing rdf:about="1st Soldier Missing in Action"/>
      <owl:Thing rdf:about="2nd Soldier Missing in Action"/>
      (...)
     </owl:oneOf>     
    </mil:Soldier>
   </graves:isRemainsOf>
  </graves:Skeleton> 
 </graves:containsRemains>
</graves:Grave>

6.2. A lone grave in the forest, A Simple Example

The simple grave on the banks of the river in northern Ontario, without cemetery or graveyard. The name of the person is partially known as well as the date of death, but we don't create a Person instance for him.

<graves:Grave rdf:about=" ... ">
 <!-- Cedar Lake -->
 <graves:hasLocation rdf:resource="Geonames Cedar Lake"/>
 <!-- Algonquin Park Boundaries--> 
 <graves:hasLocation rdf:resource="Geonames Algonquin Park "/>
 <graves:siteName>Grave of A. Corbeil</graves:siteName>
 <foaf:name>Grave of A. Corbeil</foaf:name>
 <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Grave of A. Corbeil (Algonquin Park, Canada)</rdfs:label>
 <!-- The actual location of the grave -->
 <graves:hasLocation>
  <geo:Point rdf:about=" Precise Lat and Long "> 
   <geo:lat>46.004756708462466</geo:lat>
   <geo:long>-78.4839677810669</geo:long>
  </geo:Point>
 </graves:hasLocation>
 <!-- Grave has a wooden marker -->
 <graves:hasCommemoration>
  <graves:Tombstone rdf:about=" Thombstone instance">
   <graves:hasName>A Corbeil June 1 1888</graves:hasName>
   <graves:epitaph>IHS</graves:epitaph>
  </graves:Tombstone>
 </graves:hasCommemoration>  
 <graves:containsRemains> 
  <graves:Skeleton rdf:about=" Skeleton instance "/>
 </graves:containsRemains>               
 <documents:depiction rdf:resource=" Image of grave "/>    
</graves:Grave>

The complete RDF dump of this example can be queried here.

6.3. CIBC Waterloo Branch Plaque, Medium Example

After the Great War, the Canadian Bank of Commerce commissioned a book and a series of plaques to commemorate its employees that participated in the Great War. In 1961, the bank merged with the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Bank_of_Canada">Imperial Bank of Canada to form modern day Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

This particular plaque is now displayed at the Uptown Waterloo, Ontario CIBC branch. Interestingly, one of the soldiers listed Hubert George Hazelton does not appear in any of the Great War databases but is referenced in the Canadian Bank of Commerce "Letters from The Front", Volume 2, Page 194.

In the following markup, the rnews markup is used to records a North American style street and mailing address as well as a WGS84 longitude and latitude point.

 <graves:Plaque rdf:about=" 936318e7cf2a769ba1eea2b7ba5a6d0c ">
  <graves:siteName>CBC Waterloo Branch Great War Plaque</graves:siteName>
  <graves:inscription>IN MEMORY OF 1701 MEN OF THE CANADIAN BANK OF COMMERCE 
  WHO SERVED IN THE GREAT WAR 1914-1918 LT H G HAZELTON SGT C R KRANE SPR W R DIERLAMM 
  WATERLOO ONT BRANCH</graves:inscription>
  <graves:commemorates rdf:resource=" 426398_Charles_Robert_Kranz_CEF />
  <graves:commemorates rdf:resource=" 355071_Wilfred_R_Dierlamm_CEF  "/>
  <graves:commemorates rdf:resource=" 866b9bb7ef671b2a6a9afcec7079bf30 "/>
  <graves:hasLocation>
   <rnews:PostalAddress rdf:about=" c688267b00b90a6e69200cfa7bcef7b8 ">
    <foaf:name>Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce</foaf:name>
    <rnews:postalCode>N2J3Z6</rnews:postalCode>
    <rnews:streetAddress>27 King Street North</rnews:streetAddress>
    <rnews:telephone>+1-519-886-2960</rnews:telephone>
    <rnews:addressCountry rdf:resource="http://sws.geonames.org/6251999/"/>
    <rnews:addressLocality rdf:resource="http://sws.geonames.org/6176823/"/>
    <rnews:addressRegion rdf:resource="http://sws.geonames.org/6093943/"/>
  </rnews:PostalAddress> 
 </graves:hasLocation>
 <graves:hasLocation>
  <geo:Point rdf:about=" ... ">
   <geo:lat>43.465883</geo:lat>
   <geo:long>-80.522788</geo:long>
  </geo:Point>  
 </graves:hasLocation>
  <documents:depiction rdf:resource=" ... "/>
</graves:Plaque>

The complete RDF dump of this example can be queried here.

CIBC Waterloo Branch Plaque - Image Markup

There has been some discussion about the representation and markup of a monument surface to link certain elements to annotations and further RDF. The Graves ontology only deals with the monument in itself and the image of the monument is linked through a depiction property. Since most people mean to annotate an image for human consumption, the simplest way to do this it through html image maps and svg annotation. There have been attempts at that in the past, notably in the W3C Incubator Group and the Mindswap Image Annotator using the Image Region Ontology.

All of these tools rely so far on embedding svg markup into rdf. This is useful for directly producing an image in the style of the Figure below in that the svg can be superimposed over the image or converted into an html map. However, it is not possible to access the data from within the linked open data world.

The Linked Geo Data makes use of an approach based on rdf:Seq and rdf:li (see this example for the Soviet Cemetery in Weimar). This works in an rdf setting but not necessarily in an owl setting and needs further thinking.

Graves deals primarily with discrete aspects of monument annotation, such as (artistic) title, (place) name and inscription and epitaph. The simplest way to integrate an external annotation to the graves ontology is to repeatedly use the inscription property to link specific annotation instances to both the image instance of the monument and the Graves instance of the monument.

6.4. Soviet Cemetery in Weimar, A Complete Cemetery Example

The Soviet Military Cemetery is Weimar, Germany dates from the end of the Second World War. 3 men to hole in the ground, 6 men to a tombstone, the cemetery is an odd place frozen in time following the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the cold war. The grass is still cut, but the gas torch that used to blaze on the soviet monument has long been turned off. Some tombstones have a full inscription, some only a surname.

The cemetery contains several hundreds of graves and the rdf is fully materialized with inverse properties. Notice that the graves:hasFrontFace and graves:hasFrontFace properties were used to identify which side of the tombstone the inscriptions are inscribed on.

<graves:MilitaryCemetery rdf:about="Soviet Cemetery">
 <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Soviet Military Cemetary (Weimar, Germany)</rdfs:label>
 <owl:sameAs rdf:resource="http://linkedgeodata.org/triplify/way119212346"/>
 <foaf:name>Soviet Military Cemetary</foaf:name>
 <graves:denomination></graves:denomination>
 <graves:siteName>Soviet Military Cemetary</graves:siteName>
 <gn:locatedIn rdf:resource="http://sws.geonames.org/2812482/"/>
 <graves:hasPart rdf:resource="Central Monument"/>
 <graves:hasPart rdf:resource="Cemetery Gate"/>
 <graves:containsGrave rdf:resource="БЕАКИН's Grave"/>
 <graves:containsGrave rdf:resource="ГРОМОВ's Grave"/>
 ( ... )
</graves:MilitaryCemetery>

<graves:Monument rdf:about="Central Monument">
 <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Soviet Cemetary Monument (Weimar, Germany)</rdfs:label>
 <rdfs:name>Soviet Cemetary Monument</rdfs:name>
 <graves:siteName>Monument to Soviet Soldiers buried in the Cemetary.</graves:siteName>
 <foaf:depiction rdf:resource="Momument Picture"/>
 <graves:hasLocation> <geo:Point rdf:about="Monument Location">
   <geo:lat>50.974984</geo:lat>
   <geo:long>11.332123</geo:long>
  </geo:Point>
 <graves:hasLocation>
 <graves:inscription xml:lang="en">ETERNAL GLORY TO THE HEROES 
 YEARS 1941 - 1945</graves:inscription>
 <graves:inscription xml:lang="ru">ВЕЧНАЯ СЛАВА ГЕРОЯМ 1941 - 1945 ГГ
 </graves:inscription>
 <gn:locatedIn rdf:resource="http://sws.geonames.org/2812482/"/>
 <graves:isPartOf rdf:resource="Soviet Cemetery"/>
</<graves:Monument>

<graves:Monument rdf:about="Cemetery Gate">
 <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">Soviet Cemetary Gate (Weimar, Germany)</rdfs:label>
 <foaf:name>Cemetary Gate</foaf:name>
 <graves:siteName xml:lang="en">Soviet Cemetary Gate</graves:siteName>
 <foaf:depiction rdf:resource="Picture of Gate 1"/>
 <foaf:depiction rdf:resource="Picture of Gate 2"/>
 <graves:hasLocation>
  <geo:Point rdf:about="Gate Location">
   <geo:lat>50.974903</geo:lat>
   <geo:long>11.331570</geo:long>
  </geo:Point>
 <graves:hasLocation>
 <gn:locatedIn rdf:resource="http://sws.geonames.org/2812482/"/>
 <graves:isPartOf rdf:resource="Soviet Cemetery"/>
</<graves:Monument>

<graves:Tombstone rdf:about="Tombstone 1 Front">
 <foaf:depiction rdf:resource="Picture of Front of Tombstone 1"/>
 <graves:hasRearFace rdf:resource="Tombstone 1 Back"/>
 <graves:inscription>ГРУНОВ 1901-1946 ДРОЗДОВ ФЕДОР 1916-1946 
 ЗУБКОВ НИКОЛАЙ 1920-1945</graves:inscription>
 <graves:isCommemorationOf rdf:resource="ГРУНОВ's Grave"/>
 <graves:isCommemorationOf rdf:resource="ДРОЗДОВ's Grave"/>
 <graves:isCommemorationOf rdf:resource="ЗУБКОВ's Grave"/>
 <graves:isPartOf rdf:resource="Soviet Cemetery"/>
</graves:Tombstone>

<graves:Tombstone rdf:about="Tombstone 1 Back">
 <foaf:depiction rdf:resource="Picture of Back of Tombstone 1"/>
 <graves:hasFrontFace rdf:resource="Tombstone 1 Front"/>
 <graves:inscription>БЕАКИН ВАСИПИЙ 1923-1945 ГРОМОВ СЕМЕН 1921-1945 
 ДОВИДЕН ПАВЕЛ 1920-1946</graves:inscription>
 <graves:isCommemorationOf rdf:resource="БЕАКИН's Grave"/>
 <graves:isCommemorationOf rdf:resource="ГРОМОВ's Grave"/>
 <graves:isCommemorationOf rdf:resource="ДОВИДЕН's Grave"/>
 <graves:isPartOf rdf:resource="Soviet Cemetery"/>
</graves:Tombstone>

<graves:Graves rdf:about="БЕАКИН's Grave">
 <graves:hasCommemoration rdf:resource="Tombstone 1 Back"/>
 <graves:containsRemains rdf:resource="БЕАКИН's Remains"/>
 <graves:graveContainedIn rdf:resource="Soviet Cemetery"/>
</graves:Graves>

<graves:Skeleton rdf:about="БЕАКИН's Remains">
 <graves:isRemainsOf rdf:resource="Soldier БЕАКИН ВАСИПИЙ"/>
 <graves:remainsIn rdf:resource="БЕАКИН's Grave"/>
</graves:Skeleton>

<mil:Soldier rdf:about="Soldier БЕАКИН ВАСИПИЙ">
 <rdfs:label xml-lang="ru">БЕАКИН ВАСИПИЙ (Советский солдат, 1923-1945)"</rdfs:label>
 <rdfs:label xml-lang="en">BEAKIN VASIPY (Soviet Soldier, 1923-1945)"</rdfs:label>
 <mil:name xml-lang="ru">БЕАКИН ВАСИПИЙ"</mil:name>
 <mil:firstName xml-lang="ru">БЕАКИН"</mil:firstName>
 <mil:lastName xml-lang="ru">ВАСИПИЙ"</mil:lastName>
 <mil:allegiance rdf:resource="Dbpedia Soviet Union"/>
 <mil:birthday rdf:resource="БЕАКИН's Birth"/>
 <mil:deathday rdf:resource="БЕАКИН's Death"/>
 <graves:hisRemains rdf:resource="БЕАКИН's Remains"/>
</mil:Soldier>
(...)

The complete RDF dump of this example can be queried here.

6.5. The Canadian War Memorial, Disinterment Example.

The Canadian War Memorial in Ottawa would look like this and includes the grave of the unknown soldier. What makes this particular case interesting is that the remains in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers were transferred from a grave in the Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery in France. Notice that the provenance of the remains is recorded as well as the construction dates of the tomb and the Cenotaph.

<graves:Cenotaph rdf:about="The Cenotaph itself">
 <owl:sameAs rdf:resource="Dbpedia Instance/>
 <foaf:depiction rdf:resource="Picture of the Cenotaph"/>
 <!-- Should avoid characters like '(' that can be mangled by parsers in urls -->
 <graves:hasLocation>
  <geo:Point rdf:about="Cenotaph Location">
   <geo:lat>45.424036</geo:lat>
   <geo:long>-75.695497</geo:long>
  </geo:Point>
 </graves:hasLocation>
 <graves:siteName xml:lang="en">National War Memorial</graves:siteName>
 <rdfs:label xml:lang="en">National War Memorial (Canada)</rdfs:label>
 <graves:siteName xml:lang="fr">Monument commémoratif de guerre du Canada</graves:siteName>
 <rdfs:label xml:lang="fr">Monument commémoratif de guerre du Canada</rdfs:label>
 <graves:isCommemorationOf rdf:resource="Great War"/>
 
 <graves:isCommemorationOf rdf:resource="Korean War"/>
 <graves:isCommemorationOf rdf:resource="Second World War"/>
 <graves:isCommemorationOf>
  <foaf:Group rdf:about="Canadian Veterans">
   <foaf:name>Canadian War Veterans</foaf:name>
  </foaf:Group>
 </graves:isCommemorationOf>         
 <graves:hasPart>  
  <graves:Sarcophagus rdf:about="The Sarcophagus">
   <foaf:depiction rdf:resource="Picture of the Sarcophagus"/>
   <graves:siteName>Tomb of the Unknown Soldier<graves:siteName>
   <owl:sameAs rdf:resource="Dbpedia Instance"/>
   <graves:containsRemains>
    <graves:Skeleton rdf:about="Unknown Soldier's Remains">
     <graves:hisRemains>
      <graves:Soldier rdf:about="An Unknown Soldier">
       <foaf:name>An Unknown Canadian Soldier of the First World War</foaf:name>
      </graves:Soldier>
     </graves:hisRemains>
     <graves:movedFrom rdf:resource="Previous Resting Place"/>
    </graves:Skeleton>
   </graves:containsRemains>
  <graves:startDate rdf:datatype="Date">20000528</graves:startDate>
  </graves:Sarcophagus>
 </graves:hasPart>
 <graves:startDate rdf:datatype="Date">19381038</graves:startDate>
 <documents:createdBy rdf:resource="Designer"/>
</graves:Cenotaph>

Here we record that the grave containing the remains of the Unknown soldier has been removed and that remains were moved to the Sarcophagus. The markup for the original tombstone and the current one are not represented here.

<graves:Cemetery rdf:about="Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery">
 <graves:siteName>Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery</graves:siteName>
 <graves:containsGrave>
  <graves:WarGrave rdf:about="The Old Gravesite">
   <graves:hasLocation>Plot 8, Row E, Grave 7</graves:hasLocation>
   <graves:containsRemains>
    <graves:Skeleton rdf:about="Unknown Soldier's Remains">
     <graves:hisRemains rdf:resource="An Unknown Soldier"/>
     <graves:movedTo rdf:resource="The Sarcophagus"/>
    </graves:Skeleton>
   </graves:containsRemains>
   <graves:endDate rdf:datatype="Date">20000516</graves:endDate>
   <graves:startDate rdf:resource="During the Great War"/>
  </graves:WarGrave>
 </graves:containsGrave>
</graves:Cemetery>
</rdf:RDF>

The complete RDF dump of this example can be queried here.

6.6. Kitchener Cenotaph, Multiple Monument Movement Example

The Kitchener Cenotaph was built in 1929 and was moved twice before coming to its current location. During that time, the inscriptions were changed to reflect the events of the Second World War and the Korean War. The image below is an image map that links to the fragments of the RDF markup. Click on the image to explore how the monument is represented.

The complete RDF dump of this example can be queried here.

6.7. Halifax Boer War Memorial, A Very Complex Example

In certain cases it is desirable to breakdown a large and complex monument into smaller sub-monuments for both simplicity, ease of retrieval and to express specific cultural artifacts.

This example marks up the Halifax Boer War Memorial in Halifax, Nova Scotia and is represented using a series of sub monuments each having several faces to them. The html image map below is linked to the rdf instances within Muninn.

The Boer War memorial is represented by a series of sub-monuments which helps break down the cultural meaning of individual aspects or artifacts of the monument

In this case, several instances of persons, military regiments, battles and events are commemorated and depicted.

The complete RDF dump of this example can be queried here.

7. Cross-reference for Graves classes and properties

Class: graves:Ashes

URI: http://rdf.muninn-project.org/ontologies/graves#Ashes

Human Ashes -

No detailed documentation for this term.

Deprecated	Equivalent Instances
Empty_grave	EmptyGrave
moved_from	movedFrom
moved_to	movedTo
obfuscated	hasLocationObfuscated
location	hasLocation
monument_name	inscription
contains_remains	containsRemains
remains_in	remainsIn
contains_grave	containsGrave
grave_in	graveContainedIn
remains_of	isRemainsOf
has_remains	hisRemains
commemorates	isCommemorationOf
commemorated_by	hasCommemoration
site_name	siteName

Graves Ontology Specification - 1.0 - Halloween Edition

An ontology to markup information on human remains, graves, cemeteries, monuments and cenotaphs.

Working Draft — 31 October 2012

Abstract

Status of this Document

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

Namespaces used within the examples

2. New in this version

3. Ontology objectives and limitations

4. Basic ontological constructs

4.1. List of ontology terms:

5. Ontology use cases

6. Examples

6.1. The grave of the Unknown Soldier, A Running Example

6.2. A lone grave in the forest, A Simple Example

6.3. CIBC Waterloo Branch Plaque, Medium Example

CIBC Waterloo Branch Plaque - Image Markup

6.4. Soviet Cemetery in Weimar, A Complete Cemetery Example

6.5. The Canadian War Memorial, Disinterment Example.

6.6. Kitchener Cenotaph, Multiple Monument Movement Example

6.7. Halifax Boer War Memorial, A Very Complex Example

7. Cross-reference for Graves classes and properties

Class: graves:Ashes

Class: graves:Burial_mound

Class: graves:Cemetery

6.8. Halifax Holy Cross, A Cemetery Example

Class: graves:Cenotaph

Class: graves:Churchyard

Class: graves:Container_for_human_remains

Class: graves:Crypt

Class: graves:Dead_people_place

Class: graves:Dig_site

Class: graves:EmptyGrave

Class: graves:Grave

Class: graves:Gravestone

Class: graves:Graveyard

Class: graves:Headstone

Class: graves:Mass_grave

Class: graves:Memorial

Class: graves:MilitaryCemetery

Class: graves:Monument

Class: graves:ObjectState

Class: graves:Ossuary

Class: graves:Partial_remains

Class: graves:Plaque

6.9. Dalhousie University Great War Memorial, Plaque Example

Class: graves:Remains

Class: graves:Sarcophagus

Class: graves:ShipWreck

6.10. Submarine U86, A ShipWreck Example

Class: graves:Shrine

Class: graves:Skeleton

Class: graves:Statue

Class: graves:Tombstone

Class: graves:Tumulus

Class: graves:WarGrave

Property: graves:atDepth

Property: graves:containsGrave

Property: graves:containsRemains

Property: graves:denomination

Property: graves:endDate

Property: graves:epitaph

Property: graves:graveContainedIn

Property: graves:hasBottomPart

Property: graves:hasCommemoration

Property: graves:hasEastFace

Property: graves:hasFrontFace

Property: graves:hasLocation

Property: graves:hasLocationObfuscated

Property: graves:hasMap

Givenchy Road Canadian Cemetery Map Example

Property: graves:hasNorthFace

Property: graves:hasPart

Property: graves:hasRearFace

Property: graves:hasSouthFace

Property: graves:hasState

Property: graves:hasTopPart

Property: graves:hasWestFace

Property: graves:hisRemains