A Framework for Transforming Archaeological Databases to Linked Ontological Datasets

Traditionally, archaeological experts are used to recording data in relational databases. Although these data storage mechanism are robust, they are inaccessible to the most popular and powerful web-based search engines. To increase the uptake and usage of archaeological data, these resources need to be openly available and accessible both to humans and machines. In this paper we propose a framework for the transformation of archaeological databases to RDF datasets. The ontology schema we define for the transformation is an extension of the CIDOC-CRM standard vocabulary. We propose DOTL: a transformation language for migrating the datasets. A novel feature of the transformation is the generation of linked data sources. We exemplify our framework using a case study from the Tracing Networks project.