=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3724/papper1
|storemode=property
|title=Bistìris Ontology: Towards a Structured Representation of Sardinian Traditional Female Costumes
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3724/paper1.pdf
|volume=Vol-3724
|authors=Giorgio Corona,Dario Guidotti,Laura Pandolfo,Luca Pulina
}}
==Bistìris Ontology: Towards a Structured Representation of Sardinian Traditional Female Costumes==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3724/paper1.pdf
Bistìris Ontology: Towards a Structured
Representation of Sardinian Traditional Female
Costumes
Giorgio Corona, Dario Guidotti, Laura Pandolfo* and Luca Pulina
DUMAS, Università degli Studi di Sassari, via Roma 151, Sassari, 07100, Italy
Abstract
In the field of cultural heritage, several ontologies have been proposed to model the vast and diverse
artistic and historical heritage, facilitating the interconnection and deeper understanding of the complex
relationships among the cultural assets that comprise it. In this paper, we propose Bistìris, an ontology
designed for describing a specific category of cultural objects: Sardinian traditional female costumes.
Bistìris contributes to this context by aiming to provide a schema for representing this particular kind
of cultural heritage asset. We detail the methodology of the Bistìris ontology and outline its practical
application. Inspired by the work of domain experts, Bistìris incorporates a range of parameters. Its
main objective is to highlight the distinctions between different local traditions, including variations
among costumes from the same town. Bistìris achieves this goal as it is tailored for the analytical
description of garments and costumes.
Keywords
Digital Libraries and Archives, Ontologies, Cultural Heritage, Traditional Costumes
1. Introduction
Preserving cultural heritage is essential for maintaining the richness and diversity of human his-
tory. One significant category of cultural heritage objects is represented by traditional costumes,
which are crucial for cultural study as they visually embody a community’s values, beliefs, his-
tory, and norms. In territories like Sardinia – an Italian island located in the Mediterranean sea –
where cultural identity and traditions are deeply rooted, these garments hold great significance
and serve as powerful symbols of the island’s rich heritage [1]. They are not considered as mere
fabric pieces but tangible expressions of history, craftsmanship, and creativity, often featuring
unique designs, colours, and materials specific to their culture, making them valuable cultural
artefacts [2]. Therefore, given their significance, researchers often study traditional attire to
gain insights into various cultural aspects, including social structure, economy, religion, and
intercultural dynamics.
SemDH 2024: First International Workshop of Semantic Digital Humanities, May 27, 2024, Hersonissos, Greece
*
Corresponding author.
†
These authors contributed equally.
$ gcorona1@uniss.it (G. Corona); dguidotti@uniss.it (D. Guidotti); lpandolfo@uniss.it (L. Pandolfo);
lpulina@uniss.it (L. Pulina)
0009-0008-6039-4933 (G. Corona); 0000-0001-8284-5266 (D. Guidotti); 0000-0002-5785-5638 (L. Pandolfo);
0000-0003-0258-3222 (L. Pulina)
© 2024 Copyright for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
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However, there is a risk of these cultural objects becoming increasingly obsolete and dis-
appearing due to various factors such as modernisation and changing societal norms. Hence,
preserving this heritage has become a priority for many researchers, museums and local com-
munities, who recognise the importance of safeguarding it for future generations.
Over the past decade, there has been a growing trend within the cultural heritage field to
adopt knowledge representation methods and tools of the Semantic Web in order to provide a
common base for structuring and managing cultural data [3, 4, 5]. Additionally, the emergence
of historical semantic archives dedicated to cultural artefacts has further advanced the field,
allowing for more nuanced and comprehensive representations of cultural heritage items [6, 7, 8].
Currently, different semantic digital libraries, such as Europeana1 [9], collect several items
related to traditional costumes, including some of those from Sardinia. For their representation,
various ontologies are employed (e.g. CIDOC-CRM [10], RIC-O [11], ArCo [12]) which have
been designed for cataloguing cultural heritage objects. While these ontologies provide means to
represent relevant information such as dates, authors, materials, and measurable characteristics,
as well as analytical descriptions of the assets through photographs and texts, they are not
specifically tailored for traditional costumes. Therefore, many of their properties may not
adequately capture the intricacies and nuances of traditional attire, underscoring the need for
further development in this area.
In this paper, we present a new ontology, Bistìris2 , which is designed to capture the intricate
variations of the Sardinian traditional female costume. Sardinia, with its rich mosaic of cultural
traditions, preserves a wide range of traditional costumes. One of the main goals of Bistìris is to
allow domain experts to conduct cross-referenced searches based on the physical characteristics
of their objects of study, which are usually not described in detail by other ontologies. Bistìris
serves as a structured framework for documenting and preserving the diverse variations of
Sardinian traditional female costumes, particularly those worn during festive occasions and
weddings, by providing a semantic representation that includes geographical and temporal
properties. The main goal is to safeguard this cultural heritage for future generations while
also facilitating research, education, and cultural exchange initiatives. To achieve this, we strive
to provide a semantic representation capable of categorising each asset based on descriptive
parameters. By leveraging an ontology, we can identify patterns in colour usage and fashion
trends, as well as unexpected relationships between the characteristics of assets and their
geographical and cultural origins. This allows researchers to explore the synchronous and
diachronic diffusion of parameters of interest, compare data from various sources and analyse the
evolution of costume over time and across geographical regions. To the best of our knowledge,
Bistìris represents the first attempt to propose an ontology in this specific domain.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows: In Section 2, we report some related work
pertinent to the domain under consideration. Following that, Section 3 describes the ontology
design process and development, encompassing the methodology, requirement collection,
conceptualisation, implementation, ontology reuse, and population. Subsequently, Section 4
explores the usage of Bistìris. Finally, in Section 5 we discuss conclusion and future work.
1
https://www.europeana.eu/en
2
The ontology’s name derives from a Sardinian word that means clothes or dresses in English.
2. Related Work
In the domain of cultural heritage ontology development, there has been a growing interest in
creating semantic representations of cultural heritage objects to preserve and promote cultural
diversity. While there is a plethora of ontologies focusing on various aspects of cultural heritage,
including music, artworks, and historical artefacts, the specific area of representing traditional
costumes, especially Sardinian traditional female costumes, is relatively underexplored.
Beginning in 2018, the ArCo knowledge graph [12], consisting of a network of 13 vocabularies
and 169 million triples, has enabled the online publication of about 820 thousand cultural entities
from the Catalogue of Italian Cultural Heritage. ArCo is designed to provide answers to queries
such as those reported in the following [13] :
• What are the cultural events related to the cultural property X?
• What is the conservation status of the cultural property X?
• When was the cultural property X realised? What is the source of the dating?
• What are the geographical coordinates of the cultural property X?
Among the ontologies constituting the ArCo network, those that provide valuable classes
and properties for analytically delineating traditional costume assets include:
• Denotative Description Ontology, which encodes the measurable physical characteris-
tics of a cultural object, such as length, material type, construction technique and state of
preservation.
• Clothing Description Ontology, which allows the description of garments through
the measurement and description of elements such as pockets, collar, cuffs and sleeves,
as well as by reporting the presence or absence of decorations and embroidery. It also
allows the reporting of relationships between different garments through properties such
as arco:hasClothingElement, arco:hasSeam, arco:hasThreadCut and their in-
verse properties.
To provide an example of how ArCo describes a Sardinian traditional costume, we report
a part of the metadata description pertaining to a costume from the small town of Fonni 3 ,
housed at the Sardinian Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography in Monserrato (Cagliari,
Italy), detailed in Table 1. ArCo provides a photograph showcasing the entire costume on a
mannequin, identification codes, location, authorship, materials, usage, conservation status,
legal information, bibliography, and the authors responsible for compiling the data. Additionally,
a concise analytical text is included to provide further insight into the item.
Among the vocabulary used for representing traditional attire, Costume Core [14] emerges as a
metadata schema with controlled descriptive fashion terminology for garments and accessories.
It achieves this objective using photographs and textual descriptions as well as incorporating
properties such as main colour, secondary colour, costume’s components, skirt type and sleeve
type. However, Costume Core was primarily developed for describing two-piece evening or
3
The complete description can be found at: https://dati.beniculturali.it/lodview-arco/resource/
DemoEthnoAnthropologicalHeritage/2000219383.html. Accessed: 2024-03-11
Metadata Property Value
dc:title dress
dc:description Traditional women’s dress consisting of: handkerchief, white
cotton shirt with embroidery, bodice ending at the front with
two points, red cloth jacket, 2 woollen skirts, apron.
dc:identifier 2000219383
foaf:depiction https://www.sigecweb.beniculturali.it/images/fullsize/
ICCD1023190/ICCD11925037_UCAMSAE00104.jpg
arco:catalogueNumber 00219383
arco:regionIdentifier 20
dc:coverage Monserrato (CA)
dc:rights State property
pico:materialAndTechnique various
Table 1
An example of metadata description of a Sardinian traditional costume, as provided by ArCo. These
descriptions were originally in Italian and have been translated into English.
day dresses, characterised by simpler compositions, varieties, and colour ranges compared to
the majority of female’s costumes within the Sardinian tradition. Consequently, a differently
structured ontology is required to adequately capture the complexities of Sardinian costumes.
3. Ontology Design & Development
In this section, we present the design and development process of the ontology. Subsection 3.1
explains the methodology used, while subsection 3.2 presents the requirements and the lexical
usage used to design the ontology. In subsection 3.3 we provide the description of a first
conceptualisation, while in subsection 3.4 we describe the classes and properties implemented.
Finally, subsection 3.5 provides details about the reuse of existing ontologies.
3.1. Methodology
The methodology used to develop Bistìris draws inspiration from established approaches for
developing domain ontologies. Specifically, we adopt a combination of different approaches –
such as Methontology [15] and Cyc [16] – to create Bistìris. This process involves four main
steps:
1. Determining the domain and scope of the ontology. At the outset, we focus on
defining the specific domain of interest, which in our case is the intricate variations of the
Sardinian traditional female costume. We establish the scope of the ontology to ensure
that it effectively captures all relevant aspects of the domain. This initial aim is to collect
requirements and Competency Questions (CQs) from cultural stakeholders and domain
experts.
2. Conceptual model development. Using the insights gained from the previous steps,
we proceed to develop the conceptual model of Bistìris. This involves defining the key
concepts, relationships, and properties that characterise the variations of the Sardinian
traditional female costume. We employ formal ontology modelling techniques to ensure
clarity, coherence, and interoperability of the ontology.
3. Ontology reuse. We explore existing ontologies and relevant resources to identify po-
tential reusable components that can inform the development of Bistìris. This step helps
streamline the ontology development process and ensures compatibility with existing
standards and practices.
4. Ontology implementation. We use Protégé [17] software to implement Bistìris. It
provides robust support for ontology development, allowing us to communicate with
other reasoning programs, integrate business rules for inference, and adhere to the latest
RDF and OWL 2 [18].
By following this methodology, we aim to create Bistìris as a structured and comprehensive
ontology that effectively captures the nuances and variations of the Sardinian traditional female
costume, thereby contributing to the preservation and study of this cultural heritage.
3.2. Requirements Collection
The exploration of traditional Sardinian costumes poses unique challenges. Firstly, the significant
diversity in styles exhibited by these garments, varying greatly based on their geographical and
cultural origins. Secondly, since the first half of the twentieth century, these costumes have
ceased to be in regular use, leading to a plethora of deviations from traditional norms evident in
the specimens available today [19]. Bistìris aims at addressing the aforementioned challenges
by integrating heterogeneous requirements. In our pursuit of domain expert consultations, we
established connections with different cultural institutions, including the Sanna Museum of
Sassari and the Costume Museum of Nuoro.
After conducting a thorough review of pertinent literature and consulting with domain
experts, we developed the foundational requirements for Bistìris using the methodology
outlined in [20]. While the initial exploration of available literature provides a generic description
of each traditional garment, we had to resort to collecting detailed information about the
costumes by examining photographs and illustrations sourced from books, manuals, and cultural
institutional sites. Consequently, we focused on describing female’s costumes in four main
variants: wedding dress, gala dress, festive dress, and festive maiden dress. The ontological
requirements collection mainly stems from the domain knowledge found in Franca Rosa Contu’s
essay, Il sistema vestimentario [21]. This comprehensive study focuses on the description of
traditional Sardinian female’s costumes, including analysis of local variants, historical tracing,
and abundant photographic examples. Additionally, references such as [22] and [23] provided
valuable insights necessary for making crucial comparisons regarding the composition of certain
costumes. The terminology was primarily drawn from [21], while the ontological requirements
are collected from literature review and domain experts’ consultations, which are then translated
as competency questions. A condensed version of the resulting requirements specification
document is described in Table 2.
1. Purpose
The purpose of the Bistìris ontology is to serve as a structured framework for documenting and preserving the diverse
variations of the Sardinian traditional female costume.
2. Scope
The ontology focuses on capturing the intricate variations of the Sardinian traditional female costume, encompassing
geographical and temporal dimensions. It aims to index each asset based on descriptive parameters to facilitate comparative
analysis and exploration of the cultural heritage embodied in these costumes.
3. Implementation Language
OWL2 DL
4. Intended End-Users
User 1. Cultural institutions (such as museums and archives) that have a detailed bibliography about Sardinian costumes
looking for a formal language to express it.
User 2. Researchers and scholars with complex research questions or wanting to express the data they collected in a formal
language.
5. Intended Uses
Use 1. Support the conduct of specific analysis to address research questions within the domain research field.
Use 2. Publish structured data about Sardinian traditional costumes online and integrate them with existing datasets to
enhance the query potential of end users.
6. Ontology Requirements
a. Non-Functional Requirements
NFR1. Bistìris ontology should be developed in accordance with international standards and schema, with a preference for
direct reuse, to allow reusability.
b. Functional Requirements: General Competency Questions
CQ1. How do costume characteristics vary across different
CQ4. Which specimens of a given garment are constructed
geographical, cultural and historical areas of Sardinia?
using transparent materials?
CQ2. How do costume characteristics vary according to
CQ5. Which garments are typically worn over others?
historical period?
CQ6. What is the frequency with which two specific proper-
CQ3. What are techniques and materials utilised in the
ties occur simultaneously among the garments?
creation of Sardinian garments?
7. Pre-Glossary of Terms (Term, Frequency in studied documents)
Festive (178), Skirt (92), Bodice (76), Embroideries (74), Shirt (73), Colour (67), Apron (47), Jacket (45), Headwear (37)
Table 2
Ontology Requirements Specification Document.
3.3. Conceptualisation
Initially, a bottom-up approach to designing the taxonomy of concepts, starting from individual
garments and progressing to costumes, appeared promising. However, the extensive diversity of
garment types uncovered in preliminary domain research, such as the division of the Headwear
class into sub-classes, prompted a shift to the middle-out approach [24]. This approach centres
the ontology design around the following seven core classes:
• Headwear • Shirt
• Overgarment
• Apron
• Jacket
• Bodice • Skirt
The super-class Garment contains these sub-classes, which further branch into 21 more
specialised sub-classes, as depicted in Figure 1. When filling the ontology, the key decision lies
in accurately determining the appropriate subclass for each garment being catalogued. Similarly,
when establishing the ontology’s parameters, the initial focus is on thoroughly examining the
distinctions among different garment types.
Within the Bistìris garments categorised into the aforementioned classes are detailed using
Figure 1: Graphical representation of the Garment class and its sub-classes. Note that we have chosen
not to translate some terms into English since preserving these terms in their original language ensures
accuracy and clarity within the context of our work. For example, manticello is a type of small head
mantle, giacchino and giubbetto are two variations of jackets distinguished by the presence or absence
of buttons, fabric stiffness, and other characteristics.
specific properties highlighting their colours, fashions, and the sequence in which they are
worn when assembling the costume. Additionally, a significant class is the :Costume class,
which serves as both an aggregator of constituent garments and a linking element among them,
their places of origin, referenced bibliographic sources, and the temporal periods they represent,
as we will illustrate in subsection 3.4.
3.4. Classes and Properties
Bistìris has been implemented using the OWL2 DL language with the Protégé editor. The
ontology is composed of 38 classes, 10 object properties, 30 data properties and includes more
than one thousand logical axioms. By examining the Class hierarchy view within Protégé, as
depicted in Figure 2a, it is possible to observe the main implemented classes of the ontology, while
in Figure 2b some restrictions on the class :Costume through OWL axioms are represented.
Concerning the object properties, we developed some relevant properties that delineate the
relationships among the garments. These include: the transitive property :covers, along
with their sub-properties :covers_with_transparency, as well as the symmetric property
:sewn_together. These relationships facilitate the identification of garments that are fully
(a) (b)
Figure 2: Class hierarchy view (a) and cardinality restrictions on the class :Costume (b).
visible when the costume is worn completely, those that are partially or nearly entirely covered.
Additionally, they enable distinguishing scenarios where garments are overlaid with a fabric
that permits transparency, such as when a garment is covered by a sheer veil. Moreover, the
:sewn_together object property indicates instances where garments, like skirts and bodices,
are stitched together.
Figure 3 illustrates how the main classes of the ontology relate to each other through the
properties described above. The sub-classes of the :Garment class are related to each other
through the Bistìris object properties reported below within the black box.
Figure 3: Main classes and their associated object properties within the ontology. Blue labelled ellipses
represent classes, while object properties are illustrated as labelled edges.
Concerning data properties, individuals belonging to the :Garment class can be described
using 28 data properties. The majority of them accept a datatype xsd:boolean as their range.
The remaining properties, which describe the colours of garments and accessories, accept a
datatype rdfs:Literal as their range. Most data properties represent characteristics of one
or two sub-classes of the :Garment class, sometimes qualifying individuals. An illustrative
example of certain restrictions on the :Panel_aprons class through OWL axioms is reported
below, formalised in Manchester Syntax notation 4 :
Panel_aprons and
((elongated_strip value true) or (tongue_shaped value true) or
(triangle_shaped value true)) and (apron_panel value true)
Meaning that each individual of the class :Panel_aprons must have a panel, and this panel
can be either of the :elongated_strip, :tongue_shaped or :triangle_shaped type.
3.5. Ontology Reuse
To enhance ontology interoperability and reusability, we establish connections with various
external ontologies through direct reusing strategies, guided by established principles outlined in
the state of the art [25]. Bistìris followed these approaches by seamlessly integrating ontology
terms from three prominent sources: DBpedia 5 , Dublin Core 6 , and Schema.org 7 . Table 3 shows
the direct reuse of external classes and properties in Bistìris, including their specific usage.
Element Type Ontology Usage
source Property Dublin Core A related resource from which the costume is de-
rived.
isPartOf Property Schema.org A particular garment is part of or belongs to a cos-
tume.
hasPart Property Schema.org A costume comprises or includes specific garments
as its parts.
fromLocation Property Schema.org The geographical origin or location associated with
a particular garment or costume.
dateCreated Property Schema.org The date or period when a particular garment or
costume was created.
Place Class DBpedia It denotes physical places, such as cities, countries,
regions, landmarks, or geographical areas.
Table 3
Direct reuse of classes and properties in Bistìris.
The direct reuse has been achieved by incorporating selected ontology terms into Bistìris
through the use of rdfs:isDefinedBy axioms. This approach delegates the semantics of
reused terms to the external ontologies identified, with the aim of promoting virtuous reuse
that facilitates integration between different schemas and enables access to the vast amount of
data available in the Linked Open Data.
4
https://www.w3.org/TR/owl2-manchester-syntax/
5
https://www.dbpedia.org/
6
https://www.dublincore.org/
7
https://schema.org/
3.6. Population
The ontology was populated from three primary sources, each representing distinct resource
types: a historical source, the online catalogue provide by ArCo, and the results of a project
conducted by the Ethnographic Institute of Sardinia (ISRE) 8 . The historical source utilised
was a 1989 illustrated book authored by Sardinian historian Enrico Costa [26]. Additionally,
the online catalogue ArCo and ISRE’s project facilitated access to photographs of costumes
and individual garments. Entities imported from other knowledge graphs, such as ArCo, were
linked to corresponding individuals within Bistìris using the owl:sameAs property.
Given the challenge in retrieving bibliographic material providing systematic and accurate
descriptions of costumes at the individual garment level, populating Bistìris knowledge base
requires efforts and meticulous observation of photographic material. Collaborations with
local associations dedicated to cultural heritage preservation and engagement with museum
institutions housing Sardinian costume collections were undertaken. These activities reinforced
the significance of Bistìris in facilitating the valorisation and rigorous scientific study of
Sardinia’s popular cultural artefacts.
In Figure 4, we present a graphical representation of individuals belonging to the class
:Costume and their relationships. Here, individuals are symbolised by labelled lilac ellipses,
their membership classes are denoted by labelled light blue rounded rectangles, and the data
properties values are encapsulated within green boxes. Furthermore, object properties link-
ing individuals are illustrated as labelled edges, providing a comprehensive visualisation of
the relational structure. In this example, we illustrate the network of relationships between
individuals describing two skirt specimens from the traditional costume of the small town
of Atzara, and how these individuals can be connected to external resources, such as those
from DBpedia.org. The two individuals, Atzara_Dvv_Skirt and Atzara_EC1_Skirt, both belong-
ing to the class :Long_skirt, are associated with the individuals Atzara_Dvv_Costume and
Atzara_EC1_Costume through the inverse properties :isPartOf and :hasPart. Individuals
representing costumes relate to each other through the owl:differentFrom property and,
through appropriate object properties, to individuals of the class :Datation representing
their dating, to individuals of the class :Source indicating their reference source, and to
individuals of the class dbo:Place from DBpedia.org indicating their place of origin. Both
Atzara_Dvv_Costume and Atzara_EC1_Costume belong to the class :Costume. However, while
the source provided usage details (such as bridal dress and gala dress) for the former, enabling
precise sub-classification, the latter lacked such specifications in the source. Consequently, we
categorised it in a more general manner.
The example depicted serves to exemplify how costumes can showcase variations in coloration,
embroidery, and pleating in their respective skirts. These variations, which are common among
specimens of the same traditional costume, highlight the significance of analysing and comparing
the unique features of each garment. However, it is important to note that such variations also
complicate the maintenance of a reliable knowledge base.
8
https://www.isresardegna.it/
Figure 4: Example of individuals of the class :Costume and their relationships with other individuals
and data values.
4. Using Bistìris
Bistìris presents a promising support for the comprehensive representation of traditional
female costumes of Sardinia through its capability to construct a detailed schema. Figure 5
illustrates a costume from the small town of Fonni alongside the pertinent data sourced from
the Bistìris knowledge base. Each garment, underlined and written in bold, is accompanied by
a complete list of properties’ values. It is worth noting that values written in blue are inferred
by the reasoner. As we can see from this Figure, Bistìris can be a very valuable support to
highlight recurrences with respect to the colours, fashions and dressing of the garments in the
catalogue.
In the following, we illustrate how Bistìris can be useful to address specific Competency
Questions (CQs), derived from the requirements phase (Table 2), by providing specific func-
tionalities and capabilities to explore, analyse, and understand various aspects of Sardinian
traditional costumes:
CQ1: Bistìris allows to represent the geographic origin of the costume, providing insights
into regional variations.
CQ2: Bistìris can be used to describe costumes variations, facilitating understanding of the
evolution over time of Sardinian tailoring traditions.
CQ4: Bistìris allows to represent costumes built with transparent materials, aiding investiga-
tions into material composition and construction techniques.
Figure 5: Traditional costume of Fonni accompanied by data extracted from the Bistìris knowledge
base. Blue text denotes insights inferred by the Pellet reasoner [27]. Photograph sourced from ISRE’s
publication.
CQ5: Bistìris allows to describe costumes’ layering practices.
CQ6: Bistìris can be used to represent frequency of specific properties that occur simul-
taneously among different costumes stored in the knowledge base, thus facilitating
comparative analyses.
We are currently working on extending the ontology to address additional CQs. Regarding
CQ3, the current version of Bistìris does not support the description of materials and techniques.
However, we are collaborating with domain experts to develop specific properties to examine
garments firsthand, aiming to better represent the materials and techniques used in their creation.
Moreover, upon integrating Bistìris data with other Linked Data sources such as DBpedia and
WikiData researchers will have the opportunity to conduct comprehensive searches by cross-
referencing garment characteristics with geographical, historical, and cultural data available in
the Semantic Web. This integration would significantly enhance the utility of Bistìris enabling
investigations into potential correlations between environmental factors and traditional costume
variations.
5. Conclusion and Future Work
In this paper we have proposed Bistìris, an ontology for modelling the diverse variations
of the Sardinian traditional female costume. This work is conducted as part of the PNRR
e.INS: Ecosystem of Innovation for Next Generation Sardinia project 9 , Spoke 2, which aims
to support Sardinia’s tourism and cultural sector through collaboration among universities,
research centres, museums, and society. The development of Bistìris aims to foster innovation
and sustainability, particularly in supporting small museums and cultural associations within
the tourism and cultural heritage sectors in marginal markets.
Furthermore, our work showcases the utility of custom-built ontologies to provide Semantic
Web functionality within specialised domains. By analysing available texts, we have identified
parameters for describing garments under study, allowing for future revisions and expansions
to accommodate evolving research needs. Looking ahead, enriched by feedback from expert
users, Bistìris will facilitate comparisons of Sardinian costumes across various institutions and
private collections, enabling comprehensive research and analysis.
Bistìris represents an ongoing effort toward continual improvement and enhancement. As
part of our current and future work, we are dedicated to integrating the ontology with ArCo
and CIDOC-CRM to enhance its interoperability and alignment with international standards.
Furthermore, we aim to align our approach to date representation within the ontology with
other schemas used in the realm of Linked Data. This alignment would facilitate more robust
and integrated research opportunities by leveraging temporal periods effectively. We have
investigated various temporal ontologies, including the Time Ontology [28], which offers com-
prehensive frameworks for handling precise dates. However, applying this ontology to our
specific context, characterised by broader temporal ranges and imprecise dating, necessitates
further exploration. In fact, costumes often lack specific date attributions and are typically
described in broader terms such as "Early 1900s" or "Late 1800s." To address this challenge, we
plan to explore the WikiData schema, recognising its granularity in dividing centuries into years
or decades. Furthermore, we plan to expand the ontology to encompass descriptions of tradi-
tional female daily clothing and male costumes, thereby enhancing its usefulness and breadth.
Additionally, we aim to represent additional properties related to garment materials, tailoring
techniques, and other potential technical characteristics, with domain specialists assisting in
their organisation and structuring. Finally, drawing inspiration from recent advancements in
automatic ontology-based information extraction from unstructured documents [29, 30], we are
analysing available texts to identify parameters for describing garments under study, enabling
future revisions and expansions to accommodate evolving research needs.
Acknowledgments
This work has been developed within the framework of the project e.INS- Ecosystem of In-
novation for Next Generation Sardinia (cod. ECS 00000038) funded by the Italian Ministry
for Research and Education (MUR) under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP)
- MISSION 4 COMPONENT 2, “From research to business” INVESTMENT 1.5, “Creation and
9
https://www.einssardinia.it/
strengthening of Ecosystems of innovation” and construction of “Territorial R&D Leaders”.
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