TM: stable IDs & how to cite

<!DOCTYPE html> <head> <link rel="icon" href="/img/favicon.ico"/> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> <meta name="generator" content="Adobe GoLive" /> <meta name="viewport" content="initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1"> <title>TM: stable IDs & how to cite</title>  <link href="css/layout_new.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all" /> <link href="css/layout_head_foot.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="all" />  <script src="js/jquery-3.1.1.min.js"></script> <script src="https://code.jquery.com/ui/1.12.1/jquery-ui.min.js" integrity="sha256-VazP97ZCwtekAsvgPBSUwPFKdrwD3unUfSGVYrahUqU=" crossorigin="anonymous"></script> <script src="js/resp_header.js"></script> <script src="https://www.google.com/cse/brand?form=cse-search-box&lang=en"></script> </head>  <script> var _paq = window._paq = window._paq || []; /* tracker methods like "setCustomDimension" should be called before "trackPageView" */ _paq.push(['trackPageView']); _paq.push(['enableLinkTracking']); (function() { var u="//trismegistos.org/"; _paq.push(['setTrackerUrl', u+'matomo.php']); _paq.push(['setSiteId', '7']); var d=document, g=d.createElement('script'), s=d.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; g.async=true; g.src=u+'matomo.js'; s.parentNode.insertBefore(g,s); })(); </script>  <body>  <header> <div class="wrapper header-flex"> <nav class="menu"> <ul class="active"> <li id="logo"><a href="/">TM Home</a></li> <li><a href="#top">Stable identifiers</a></li> <li><a href="#si-citing">How to cite</a></li> <li><a href="#errors">Error handling</a></li> </ul> </nav> <div id="header-right-section"> <div class="search-form search-form-disambig"> <form action="/index_new.php?searchterm="> <input type="text" name="searchterm" placeholder="Search ..."> <button>Go</button> </form> </div>  </div>  </div>  </header>  <div id="top" class="bg-light no-border"> <div class="first-container">  <h1>Stable identifiers</h1> <div id="intro" class="long-text teaser"> <p>Each individual record in each of Trismegistos' databases is identified by a unique number, a so-called 'stable identifier'. As the term implies, this number generally does not change and can thus be used to form a stable url to refer to a specific entity, e.g. www.trismegistos.org/text/12345 or www.trismegistos.org/place/2058. Since it is not always straightforward what constitutes a separate entity, this page offers an overview of what is given a stable identifier, how we deal with changes and errors, and how to use these identifiers in references.</p> </div> <div id="si-tex" class="si-items"> <h2>TM number (Texts)</h2> <div class="long-text teaser"> <p>The stable identifiers used for the Texts database, Trismegistos' core database, are called <strong>TM numbers</strong>, since they are the glue that holds the whole platform together. A text's TM number does not change when the text is re-edited or interpreted in a different way (e.g. as a magical text rather than as a document). The only way in which it can disappear is if the database turns out to contain double entry or if two fragments are joined. Even in those cases, however, track is kept of the number in the so-called old number database, and the user is re-directed towards the currently valid number (e.g. www.trismegistos.org/text/107).</p> <h6>What gets a number? Objects, documents and texts</h6> <p>In principle a Trismegistos number (TM_id) that identifies records in the database corresponds to a single document or book. In the majority of cases no distinction has to be made between a document or book (which is identified by the number), the physical object (e.g. a papyrus) and the text (e.g. a Demotic letter). Frequently, however, several (sub)texts are found together on a single writing surface and then it must be decided whether these all should become individual records with their own TM_id or not.</p> <p>To determine what constitutes a document or book or inscription (and thus should become a separate record), we have given priority to material aspects: <strong>in principle all texts written on what was in antiquity a single writing surface belong together and form one document receiving a single Trismegistos number, unless there are good reasons to believe that the only (and unintended) relation between the two texts is the writing surface itself</strong>.</p> <p>This means that related texts on the same surface are considered a single document, even if the relation is merely that they were written by the same scribe consecutively, but also that related texts which were in antiquity written on separate surfaces are considered separate documents. Even if a single text written by the same scribe and in a single action does not fit on a single papyrus sheet or ostracon but is continued on another for pure material reasons, two writing surfaces which were physically separate in antiquity cannot be considered a single document. Exceptions to this rule are rare and have explicitly been marked as such in the Ro/Vo comment field.</p> <p>In other words: the burden of proof rests with the scholar who wants to argue that two texts on the same writing surface belong to different documents because in the scribe’s intention they have nothing to do with each other.</p> <p>More problematic cases have normally been treated by Trismegistos according to the following guidelines: <ul> <li>A tax receipt connected with the sale under which it is written belongs to the same document, while another one written on a separate sheet is a separate text; in the latter case the connection is indicated in the field 'note'.</li> <li>An account on the back of a letter specifying expenses referred to in the letter belongs to the same document, while another account listing unrelated expenses is a separate text; in the latter case the connection is indicated in the field 'reuse'.</li> <li>Three documents pasted together in a tomos synkollesimos are three separate entries with theor own TM_id in the database, since they were originally separate sheets. In each case the TM_id numbers of the other documents in the tomos are mentioned in the field 'reuse'.</li> <li>A ‘cascade-letter’ is a single document, since the various forwarding letters are all concerned with the same subject - which is why they were copied into the new letter. The 'date' field contains the date on which the last forwarding letter was written.</li> <li>A palimpsest papyrus always constitutes two documents, since there is no intended relation between the two texts - otherwise the old text would not have been wiped out. There may be an unintended relation, but this does not make the two texts a single document. The entry with the new text is marked in 'reuse' as ‘palimpsest new, old text is:’ and the TM_id of the old text is provided. The entry containing the old, washed out text is marked in 'reuse' as ‘palimpsest old, new text is:’ with the TM_id of the new text.</li> <li>A text on the back of the papyrus which has no discernible intended connection with the front (or vice versa) is considered a different document. The two documents always refer to each other in 'reuse'. An example of an unintended relation is an archive owner’s reuse of the back of an obsolete contract in his archive.</li> <li>A text which is written on the same writing surface, even by another hand or at a (much) later time, is considered to be part of that document if its subject matter is intentionally related. Examples are glosses in books, tax receipts or registrations in contracts, dockets in letters, etc.</li> <li>An illegible (or unpublished) text on the back of another text is problematic, since the criterion of intended relation cannot be applied here. The burden of proof, however, rests with the scholar who wants to distinguish two documents. Therefore the option to consider the illegible verso a separate document has to be argued. Possible reasons to suspect that there is no relation are another language or script, another hand, .... If absolutely nothing can be read, we normally just add ‘illegible’ in 'back' and consider it a single document.</li> <li>Separate fragments which have been identified as belonging to the same text are considered a single document, even if they are now in different collections.</li> </ul> </p> <p>The above criteria have the advantage that they follow the current practice of most papyrological publications. Inscriptions can be more problematic: coffins and stelae can still be defined as separate physical entities, writing surfaces or documents, but for walls or ceilings of temples, tombs or quarries this is not a workable criterion. In this case the clause ‘unless there are good reasons to believe that the only (and unintended) relation between the two texts is the writing surface itself’ is crucial and topological proximity should be combined with subject matter. Generally the distinctions made in the publications have been followed.</p> </div>  </div>  <div id="si-citing" class="si-items"> <div class="goto-top"><img src="img/arrowtop.png" /><a href="#top">Back to top</a></div> <h2>Citing TM through stable identifiers</h2> <p class="long-text teaser">One of the core businesses of TM is to try and provide <a href="about_identifiers.php">stable identifiers</a> so as to counter one of the most important drawbacks of the digital world: that it is in constant flux. By assigning stable unique numeric identifiers to entities such as texts or names, people can refer to the information given in Trismegistos. For this we suggest the following guidelines:<br> </p> <table> <tr> <th class="table-entity">Type of entity</th> <th class="table-uri">URI identifier</th> <th class="table-human">Human readable</th> <tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Text</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/text/1234</td> <td class="table-human">TM 1234</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Place</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/place/1234</td> <td class="table-human">TM Geo 1234</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Place attestation</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/georef/1234</td> <td class="table-human">TM GeoRef 1234</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Archive (ancient)</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/archive/1234</td> <td class="table-human">TM Arch 1234</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Collection (modern)</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/collection/1234</td> <td class="table-human">TM Coll 1234</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Person</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/person/1234</td> <td class="table-human">TM Per 1234</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Name (personal)</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/name/1234</td> <td class="table-human">TM Nam 1234</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Name variant (personal)</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/namvar/1234</td> <td class="table-human">TM NamVar 1234</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Name variant declined (personal)</td> <td class="table-uri">to be implemented</td> <td class="table-human">TM NamVarCase 1234</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Name and person attestation</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/ref/1234</td> <td class="table-human">TM Ref 1234</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Author</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/author/123</td> <td class="table-human">TM Author 123</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Authorwork</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/authorwork/1234</td> <td class="table-human">TM AuthorWork 1234</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Editor (modern)</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/editor/1234</td> <td class="table-human">TM Edit 1234</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Language</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/language/1234</td> <td class="table-human">TM Language 1234</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Material</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/material/1234</td> <td class="table-human">TM Material 1234</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Period</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/period/1234</td> <td class="table-human">TM Period 1234</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Time</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/time/1234_5678</td> <td class="table-human">TM Time 1234_5678</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Dateref</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/dateref/1234</td> <td class="table-human">TM Dateref 1234</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Eponym</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/eponym/1234</td> <td class="table-human">TM Eponym 1234</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-entity">Chronnam</td> <td class="table-uri">www.trismegistos.org/chronnam/1234</td> <td class="table-human">TM Chronnam 1234</td> </tr> </table> </div>  <div id="general-citing" class="si-items"> <div class="goto-top"><img src="img/arrowtop.png" /><a href="#top">Back to top</a></div> <h2>Referring to Trismegistos in general or some of its sections</h2> <p class="long-text teaser">Like other publications, Trismegistos would be very much obliged if you would refer to its use in your publications. You can of course refer to web addresses (URI's), but especially for bibliometrical purposes, these are often problematic. We would therefore appreciate it if you could add a reference to one or more of our introductory publications listed below. </p> <table> <tr> <th class="table-type">TM database</th> <th class="table-uri">Database URI</th> <th class="table-publ">Publication</th> <tr> <tr> <td class="table-type">TM in general</td> <td class="table_uri">www.trismegistos.org</td> <td class="table-publ">M. Depauw / T. Gheldof, 'Trismegistos. An interdisciplinary Platform for Ancient World Texts and Related Information', in: Ł. Bolikowski, V. Casarosa, P. Goodale, N. Houssos, P. Manghi, J. Schirrwagen (edd.), <i>Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries - TPDL 2013 Selected Workshops</i> (Communications in Computer and Information Science 416), Cham: Springer 2014, pp. 40–52.</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-type">TM Texts</td> <td class="table_uri">www.trismegistos.org/tm/index.php</td> <td class="table-publ">idem</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-type">TM Collections</td> <td class="table_uri">www.trismegistos.org/coll/index.php</td> <td class="table-publ">W. Clarysse / H. Verreth (ed.), <i>Papyrus collections world wide</i>, Brussels: KVAB 2000, 118 pp.</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-type">TM Archives</td> <td class="table_uri">www.trismegistos.org/arch/index.php</td> <td class="table-publ">K. Vandorpe / W. Clarysse / H. Verreth et al., <i>Graeco-Roman archives from the Fayum</i> (Collectanea Hellenistica - KVAB 6), Leuven - Paris - Bristol: Peeters 2015, 496 pp.</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-type">TM People</td> <td class="table_uri">www.trismegistos.org/ref/index.php</td> <td class="table-publ">Y. Broux / M. Depauw, 'Developing Onomastic Gazetteers and Prosopographies for the Ancient World through Named Entity Recognition and Graph Visualization: Some Examples from Trismegistos People', in: L.M. Aiello and D. McFarland (edd.), <i>Social Informatics. SocInfo 2014 International Workshops, GMC and Histinformatics, Barcelona, Spain, November 10, 2014</i> (Lecture Notes in Computer Science 8852), Cham: Springer 2015, pp. 304-313.<br>Y. Broux, 'Things Can Only Get Better for Socrates and his Crocodile', <span class="italic">Classical Quarterly</span>, 69 (2019), 825 - 845 (<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/classical-quarterly/article/abs/things-can-only-get-better-for-socrates-and-his-crocodile-how-onomastics-can-benefit-from-digital-humanities/0DD2EAC7BEBBB32BF9D324560284B48C" target="_blank">doi: 10.1017/S0009838820000026</a>) </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-type">TM Networks</td> <td class="table_uri">www.trismegistos.org/network/index.php</td> <td class="table-publ">Y. Broux, 'Graeco-Egyptian Naming Practices: A Network Perspective', in: <i>Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies</i> 55 (2015), pp. 706-720.</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-type">TM Places</td> <td class="table_uri">www.trismegistos.org/geo/index.php</td> <td class="table-publ">H. Verreth, <i>A survey of toponyms in Egypt in the Graeco-Roman period</i> (Trismegistos Online Publications, 2), Leuven: Trismegistos Online Publications, 1253 pp.</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-type">TM Authors</td> <td class="table_uri">www.trismegistos.org/authors/index.php</td> <td class="table-publ">No publication as yet.</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-type">TM Editors</td> <td class="table_uri">www.trismegistos.org/edit/index.php</td> <td class="table-publ">M. Depauw / Y. Broux, 'Editions and Editors of Greek Papyrological Texts, 1708-2015', in: <i>Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik</i> 198 (2016), pp. 202-210.</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="table-type">TM Text Irregularities</td> <td class="table_uri">www.trismegistos.org/textirregularities/index.php</td> <td class="table-publ">M. Depauw / J. Stolk, 'Linguistic Variation in Greek Papyri: Towards a New Tool for Quantitative Study', in: <i>Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies</i> 55 (2015), pp. 196–220.</td> </tr> </table> </div>  <div id="errors" class="si-items"> <div class="goto-top"><img src="img/arrowtop.png" /><a href="#top">Back to top</a></div> <h2>How we deal with errors</h2> <p class="long-text teaser">The identifiers may be stable, but the information connected to them is not. In an ideal world, every change in TM would be monitored and recorded. Alternatively, there would be a complete version history allowing users to go back to a specific time. In this way, scholars would be able to see what information was available at which point in history, or who was responsible for what change. This is something we have started to think about for the future.</p> <p class="long-text teaser">In the current setup, however, this is unfortunately not possible. It would be a huge investment of energy, time and money, which is - at least in our opinion - not in proportion to the potential benefits. If you see a simple mistake which is indisputable, or some missing information, or a factual error, please do not write an article or a footnote. Just tell us in an email or even over coffee (perhaps better not over beer), and we will correct it, normally referring to the email or conversation in the bibliography or notes. We will correct the mistakes mentioned in articles in a similar way, of course, but the article will in many cases point out mistakes that are no longer there. Although the rectification is an advantage for scholarship, individual contributions thus becomes less visible in some cases. But here our motto is:</p> <img id="uncleSam" src="img/uncle_sam.png"></center> </div>  <div class="goto-top"><img src="img/arrowtop.png" /><a href="#top">Back to top</a></div> </div>  </div>   <footer> <div class="wrapper"> <div class="flex"> <section class="footer-col"> <a href="../about">About Trismegistos</a> </section> <section class="footer-col"> <a href="../guide.php">First time guide</a> and <a href="../about_how_to_cite.php">How to cite</a><br> </section> <section class="footer-col"> Contact: <a class="social" href="mailto:mark.depauw@kuleuven.be"><i class="fa fa-envelope aria-hidden="true""></i></a> <a class="social" href="http://www.facebook.com/TrismegistosTM" target="_blank"><i class="fa fa-facebook-square fa-lg aria-hidden="true""></i></a> <a class="social" href="http://www.twitter.com/TrismegistosTM" target="_blank"><i class="fa fa-twitter-square fa-lg aria-hidden="true""></i></a> </section> <section id="cc-license" class="footer-col"> <a rel="license" target="blank" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/4.0/88x31.png" /></a> </section> </div> </div>  </footer> </body> </html>

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TM: stable IDs & how to cite