Our work explores the application of Linked Open Data (LOD) principles and practices for the creation of an academic knowledge base of archaeological findings, by creating a Wikibase for the Timna Valley excavations. The Timna Valley is a significant archaeological site in Israel, renowned for its ancient copper mining and extensive human activity in hyper-arid regions. Spearheaded by the Central Timna Valley Project (CTV) led by Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef of Tel Aviv University, research of the excavations since 2012 has focused on elucidating technological and social processes from the Neolithic era to modern times (inter alia, Ben-Yosef et al. 2012). The sheer volume and diversity of data amassed, which is comprised of various digital files, including textual documents, photos, videos, and GIS spatial information, necessitate a robust system for organizing the data, one that will allow searchability, visualization, and discoverability.
In pursuit of accessibility and interoperability, we build on Lodwick's work (2019), as his contribution to data sharing, citation, and reuse in archaeobotany, aligns with LOD principles by emphasizing the significance of transparent and accessible data. Such initiatives promote LOD's ethos of openness and accessibility, fostering collaborative research efforts. Additionally, Evenstein Sigalov and Nachmias (2023) highlight the benefits (and challenges) of LOD practices, and specifically the use of Wikidata & Wikibase for education. Among the case studies explored in their work, are the Astrolabe explorer (The Bodleian libraries, university of Oxford, UK); The Witch-hunts project (University of Edinburgh, Scotland); and other projects in museums around the globe. In mapping various uses of Wikidata, they found that the most prevalent use is connecting, modeling and cataloguing data from separate sources, which allows users to cross-collaborate and describe items using rich data, based on a variety of sources, curated in one place, in most cases for the first time.
The decision to develop a Wikibase knowledge base as chosen platform was driven by its alignment with Open Access principles and its capacity as a knowledge graph infrastructure. Utilizing Wikibase not only facilitates the storage and organization of data, but also establishes connections with Wikidata and other databases, thereby fostering a LOD ecosystem (Rossenova 2022). Similar to Wikidata, the implementation of structured Linked Data in Wikibase enables query functionalities and data visualizations, fostering a collaborative environment, while ensuring controlled access to editing privileges. According to Rossenova (2022), “Wikibase is well suited to fulfil the need for end-to-end services to “LOD”-ify research data”.
The initiative aims to create a comprehensive repository of archaeological data, anchored by the fundamental unit of a "site" within the valley. Around 200 sites exist, each potentially containing thousands of digital artifacts cataloged based on excavation “locuses”.
Importantly, the project seeks to bridge historical gaps by incorporating previous works, notably “The Arabah Expedition” (1959-1984), alongside future endeavors, effectively establishing an enduring source of information on the Timna Valley's archaeological landscape. Wikidata, as well as Wikibase, allow the description of at time conflicting data from multiple sources (Evenstein Sigalov & Nachmias 2023). This in turn enables the curation of academic, historical knowledge to be preserved and displayed alongside more updated data regarding the same site, allowing future academics to not only find rich, layered data, but also to study its evolution over time.
Our Timna Valley Database Wikibase project (Ben-Yosef et al. 2024) is building on work available via Wikidata:WikiProject Archaeology, which aims to mainstream modeling of items, properties, datasets and other projects in Wikidata that are related to archaeology (Q23498) . As Lawrence (2022) emphasizes, data on archaeological sites is ‘messy’, heterogenous, and incomplete. Schmidt, Thiery, and Trognitz (2022) provide insights into LOD state-of-the-art practices in archaeology, emphasizing their realization through Wikidata. Their work illuminates how LOD principles manifest in archaeological data, paving the way for enhanced knowledge representation and accessibility. The sustainable archiving and cataloguing of existing archaeological datasets are among the main challenges in the next years so that these can be queried and reused by future generations (Lawrence, 2022), and to introduce new applications and techniques for archaeological research (Thiery et al. 2023). We hope to not only build on previous work available via this wikiproject, but also enriching it and expanding it when possible, which we hope will allow other academics to implement the accumulated data from this project more smoothly.
The transfer of the Timna project to Wikibase serves as a pioneering venture in Israeli academia, offering insights into the transition process, its benefits and challenges encountered. This case study aims to aid researchers seeking sustainable, long-term solutions by sharing experiences in adapting an academic database to an open platform like Wikibase.