Neil et al
If monuments are not 'things' then what are they? I would argue that by their very nature they are indeed things or, as the CIDOC CRM has it, they are 'PHYSICAL MAN-MADE STUFF'
The definition of which is:
"This class comprises all persistent physical items that are purposely created by human activity.
This class comprises man-made objects, such as a swords, and man-made features, such as rock art. No assumptions are made as to the extent of modification required to justify regarding an object as man-made. For example, a "cup and ring" carving on bedrock is regarded as instance of E24 Physical Man-Made Stuff.
Examples:
?? the Forth Railway Bridge (E22)
?? the Channel Tunnel (E25)
?? the Historical Collection of the Museum Benaki in Athens"
The nature of the stuff and the label we attach to it may change as a result of 'ideas' but it is still stuff or a thing!
The idea of the Forth Railway Bridge may bring forth the physical entity which is the bridge but the idea itself is not a concrete (steel, iron whatever) physical entity.
As to the 'historical event' v. 'Events' argument the CRM is an event-based ontology which says that an event is at a coarse level "an 'instantaneous' change of state".
Confused? I know I am!
Phil
P.S. This is my understanding of the CRM and not necessarily an accurate one! Here's the URL for the CIDOC CRM (soon to be an ISO standard) for those of you who either want to find out more or want to avoid it like the plague. (N.B. I'm not specifying a particular plague such as the Bubonic Plague/Black Death as that would open up even more cans of worms!!)
http://cidoc.ics.forth.gr/docs/cidoc_crm_version_3.4.9.pdf
Phil Carlisle
Data Standards Supervisor
National Monuments Record Centre
Kemble Drive
Swindon
SN2 2GZ
+44 (0)1793 414824
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-----Original Message-----
From: Issues related to Historic Environment Records [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Winfield, Hugh
Sent: 18 July 2006 09:22
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Great Balls of Fire
Yes I do think of monuments as things. I don't know about other smr/her
officers but I have enough on my hands in terms of traditional monuments
such as findspots, buildings, buried deposits, cropmarks etc without opening
the can of worms that would be historical events. I would also only really
start on something like this if I knew I could be systematic about it and
could see a logical end point of an initial input of data.
I do agree that the Themes part of HBSMR would be a good place to store
these though; I have to admit that I have never used an HBSMR system with it
enabled so I was unaware that it could be used in such a way.
Hugh
Hugh Winfield
Archaeologist
North East Lincolnshire Council
01472 323586
-----Original Message-----
From: Neil Campling [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 17 July 2006 08:51
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Great Balls of Fire
Dear All,
Sorry Hugh, you are still thinking of Monuments as things, not ideas.
A great fire is actually a series of happenings that has as many views
or interpretations of it as the number of people affected by it. And if
we create a new MIDAS category of "Historical Events" this will get
confused with the current category of "Events" which relates to
evidence-producing events such as geophysical survey, excavation, etc.
I like Tobi's idea better, using a category like "Theme".
Cheers,
Neil
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