Shared Iconographical Representations With Ontological Models

The need to guarantee digital archive interoperability has driven the standardization of resources forward. The tendency to make searchable on-line databases has stopped at data accessibility, often presented as a synthesis of the interpretation procedure. During data computerization, the creation of the database requires the selection of a model whose representation is left out of the encoding process. Formalising this knowledge would be helpful in reconstructing a real, semantic interoperability, especially in those areas such as iconographic analysis, where the connections between the formal representation schema used and the description of the archaeological data is greater. This contribution is based on techniques of sharing knowledge through conceptual representational models, such as ontologies. In particular it consists of extending the CIDOC CRM with DOLCE and aims at formalizing the relationship that the agent (the archaeologist) creates between an object and the model and/or theory chosen to describe it.