Computing

The project will use an innovative new approach to data management in
order to bring together the many separate sources of information that
we have about ports in the Roman Mediterranean. The Semantic Web is a
way of linking data by storing it as statements rather than in tables.
Because the statements are composed of the same URIs that you use in
the address bar of an internet browser, they can be accessed by other
computers so different datasets can be connected together more easily.
It also means that we can see all the information related to a given
concept, whether it's a thing, a property or a class of objects.

We hope that by using this methodology we might soon be able to ask
questions such as 'where are all the known finds of Dressel 20
amphorae on the Mediterranean coast?', or 'which other towns have used
the same types of marble as those employed in Tarragona?' It is with
this kind of knowledge that we can start building theoretical networks
of trade and mobility.