Wikidata:WikiProject LAGL

The goal of the WikiProject LAGL is to discuss the use of Wikidata properties for ancient authors and their works, as collected in the LAGL Catalog and other projects, such as Hypotheseis, DataLib, Greek Anthology project, The Library of Polybius, NIKAW, TM Paradoxography, ToposText and Stephanos of Byzantium.

The main objective of this discussion is to establish consistent, uniform guidelines for using Wikidata properties to make statements about ancient authors, primarily based on linguistic data extracted from ancient sources.

LAGL Project

LAGL (Linked Ancient Greek and Latin) is a project for annotating and extracting linguistic data from ancient Greek and Latin sources following the Linked Open Data (LOD) principles. The focus is on: (1) Named Entities (e.g., Θησεύς and Ἀθῆναι) and (2) bibliographic references (e.g., Ξενοφῶν ἐν τῇ Ἀναβάσει). Part of the LAGL project is the LAGL Catalog, which collects linguistic data on authors and works in ancient sources. The Wikidata (LAGL author ID (P12869)) property stores identifiers of ancient authors from the LAGL Catalog with direct links to linguistic annotations.

One of the main goals of the LAGL Project is to enrich linguistic data with metadata on ancient authors and works according to the Wikidata properties.

Experimental visualizations based on Wikidata properties for LAGL authors

Goals

Prepare documentation to work in a consistent way on existing properties and values.
Select (ancient) sources to extract assertions for Wikidata (with a particular focus on genre, geographical provenance, and chronology).
Create queries.
Assign tasks to contributors.
Schedule meetings to discuss goals and tasks.

Wikidata properties for ancient authors

Wikidata work-related properties for humans (selected list)

Occupation & Domain

occupation (P106) – occupation → the person’s job/profession (writer, philosopher, actor).
field of work (P101) – field of work → domain of expertise (ethics, metaphysics, literary criticism).
movement (P135) – movement → intellectual/artistic movement (existentialism, surrealism).
genre (P136) – genre → creative genre (novel, tragedy, poetry, analytic philosophy).

Positions, Employment & Membership

position held (P39) – position held → specific post (professor of philosophy, senator).
employer (P108) – employer → workplace (University of Oxford, Google).
member of (P463) – member of → academies, associations (Royal Society, PEN Club).
member of political party (P102) – member of political party → for politicians/activists.
members have occupation (P3989) – members have occupation → used for groups (not individuals).

Education & Academic Lineage

educated at (P69) – educated at → institutions attended.
academic degree (P512) – academic degree (paired with P69, gives context about studies).
student (P802) – student → student(s) of the person.
student of (P1066) – student of → teacher(s) of the person.

Influence & Intellectual Context

influenced by (P737) – influenced by → predecessors/mentors.
inspired by (P941) – inspired by → people/ideas influencing creative work.

Open questions for ancient authors

How do we use these properties for the genre of the author? For example, "lyric poetry" may be both in “field of work” and “genre”: see Alcman (Q298850) and Alcman of Messene (Q135265321).
Enrich the insertion of values and properties based on assertions in ancient sources, not only in modern scholarship.
In general, discuss about the sources to be used, to achieve a higher degree of uniformity.

Wikidata geographic properties for authors (selected list)

Personal Life Locations

place of birth (P19) – place of birth → where the author was born.
place of death (P20) – place of death → where the author died.
place of burial (P119) – place of burial → where they were buried/interred.
country of citizenship (P27) – country of citizenship → their legal nationality.
ancestral home (P66) – ancestral home → traditional family origin (esp. in East Asian contexts). Cf. the use of 'ancestral home" (P66): Dionysius Thrax (Q344124) based on Suda, delta 1172.
residence (P551) – residence → where they lived or stayed for significant periods.

Professional & Creative Life

work location (P937) – work location → where the author worked (city, institution, etc.).
employer (P108) – employer → person or institution having employed the author

Broader Contextual Properties

significant place (P7153) – significant place, with necessary qualifier P3831
epithet (P8822) – epithet [nome place epithets often to be created]

Open questions for ancient authors

Ancient or modern places for ancient authors? For example, there are ancient authors in Wikidata grouped under Samos ancient city (Samos (Q13580795): ancient Greek city-state) and Samos modern island (Samos (Q156882): Greek island in Aegean Sea)
- Present consensus: try to standardise towards ancient cities, creating them whenever necessary.
How do we categorize different locations associated with the same author, as mentioned in ancient sources? For example, Herodotus in the Suda, eta 536.
- Possible option: significant place (P7153) with qualifier object of statement has role (P3831) having as value either somevalue or a list of values to be agreed on
View the LAGL Authors map with Wikidata location properties, for the richness of places associated with ancient authors.

Wikidata properties for chronology of ancient authors (selection)

date of birth (P569) – date of birth
date of death (P570) – date of death
floruit (P1317) – floruit
start of work period (P2031) – work period start
end of work period (P2032) – work period end

In general, cf. Help:Dates

Wikidata properties for ancient works (provisorial selected list)

Literary works

author (P50) – author → authorship of works.
inspired by (P941) – inspired by → inspirations.
based on (P144) – based on → intellectual/creative sources.
main subject (P921) – main subject → topics of their works.
notable work (P800) – notable work.

Artworks

discoverer or inventor (P61) – discoverer or inventor → scientific contributions.
designed by (P287) – designed by → designers, architects.
creator (P170) – creator → general artistic creation.

Open questions for ancient works

How do we classify literary works (genre and state, such as fragmentary works, etc.)? Cf. P31 + P7937 + P136 as in Ajax (Q412341).
How do we express forms of ancient titles or descriptions of work contents in the original language?

Readings

Papers

Berti, M. (2025) ‘Linked Ancient Greek and Latin (LAGL) and Wikidata: Structuring and Reusing Data of Classical Literature’, Journal of Open Humanities Data, 11(1), p. 72. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5334/johd.423.
Fantoli, M., Boano, V. I., de Graaf, E. and Pellizzari di San Girolamo, C. C. (2026) ‘Wikidata as a Knowledge Base for People of the Greco-Roman World’, Journal of Open Humanities Data, 12(1), p. 21. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5334/johd.457.
Ripoll-Alberola, L., Le Bris, M.-M. and Fischer, J.P. (2026) ‘Canons Across Time: Compiling Lists of Ancient Authors with Wikidata’, Journal of Open Humanities Data, 12(1), p. 5. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5334/johd.442.

Wikidata pages

about data modeling issues: Wikidata:Events/Data Quality Days 2022/Modeling data (+ video)

Related WikiProjects

WikiProject Antiquity
- WikiProject Ancient Greece
- WikiProject Ancient Rome

Participants

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